The Bodies in the Beach
by K. Elisabeth
Summary: When a couple living in an elitist neighborhood are murdered, Booth and Brennan go undercover to infiltrate their wealthy subculture and find out just what secrets are hiding underneath those white collars. BB
1. When Everything You See is a Blur

**A/N:** New chaptered fic! I've been sort of playing around with a few different ideas for a little while, then today they all came together out of nowhere and formed the basis for this story. It's been forever since I wrote a chaptered fic... and yes, I am aware that I left "The Misfits in the Mountains" to rot, sorry about that. It was a really plot-driven fic and I have a terrible time writing those, so it kind of lost its luster to me. I would say that maybe one of these days I'll do something about it, but to be totally honest I probably won't. But I like this one, I'm going to stick with this one, be not afraid. :)

Anyway, enough of my rambling. Enjoy the beginning of this, and let me know what you think!

* * *

_Hey, Jaded_  
_In all it's misery it will always be _  
_What I love, and hated_  
_And maybe take a ride to the other side _  
_We're thinkin' of_  
_We'll slip into the velvet glove_  
_And be jaded..._

_- Jaded, Aerosmith_

* * *

The sky was unusually dark for two o'clock in the afternoon when their plane landed, and Booth let out his first real breath since they hit turbulence over Georgia. They had flown through a thunderstorm that rattled the plane and its passengers, knocking drinks off of fold-out tables and forcing the flight attendants to take their seats. That storm had followed them all the way to Jacksonville, Florida, and their rainy landing had Booth gripping the arm rests of his seat as if he were trying to hold the plane together.

Brennan watched him bemusedly—she had never been particularly shaken by storms or by flying, so the combination of the two had not bothered her. The only thing that annoyed her was her small plastic cup of Sprite falling off the table and onto her lap, the cold sensation of liquid soaking through her pants snapping her out of her nap.

"I don't know what you're so bothered by," she had said as she pressed paper napkins into her jeans, soaking up as much liquid as she could. He gritted his teeth, shaking his head slightly.

"I just don't like turbulence," was all he said, at that moment and for the rest of their flight. Now that they were safely on the ground, though, he relinquished his grip on the arm rests and finally cracked a smile.

"We're here," he said, not bothering to hide his immense relief.

"You say that as if there was a real threat of us not making it," she said, following him down the narrow aisle of the plane, squeezed between harried passengers who, like Booth, seemed eager to get off of what they perceived as a winged death-trap.

"Come on, haven't you ever seen Lost?" he asked. She gave him a very plain look and he sighed. "Of course you haven't, what am I saying? You have _got _to get a TV."

"If watching television is endowing you with irrational fears about flight safety, then I'd rather not submit myself to similar brainwashing, thank you."

"It's not brainwashing, it's entertainment," he argued as they found the luggage carousel from their flight, waiting for the bags to start coming out.

"You didn't seem very entertained when we hit that turbulence an hour ago," she pointed out, and he made an indistinct growling noise, leaning over and grabbing her suitcase, then his a minute later.

By the time they got out to the rental car parking lot, the rain was coming down full force. They splashed through the waterlogged parking lot, bottoms of their pants soaking through with water as they found the tag number they were looking for. Booth unlocked the SUV and took Brennan's bag, letting her climb into the dry vehicle while he loaded up the luggage. She took in a breath of relief as she shut the car door behind her, settling into the seat. The air was so dense and humid here, especially when it rained, that she could barely catch her breath outside. It was oppressive and thick, a feeling similar to breathing through a wet cloth. A minute later Booth stepped up into the driver's seat and quickly shut the door, shaking his head like a wet dog.

"Geez, it's really coming down," he observed, cranking the engine. Cold air blasted out of the vents, and while normally in this climate that would be appreciated, with both of them soaked through with rain they quickly began to shiver. She turned off the air and pulled the printed out directions from her bag.

"We're supposed to get onto I-95 out of the airport, then left onto Florida 9A, then right onto A1A and take it all the way to St. Augustine. After St. Augustine you turn left onto A1A Beach Boulevard, and the neighborhood where the bodies were found is supposed to be on the left."

"Sounds easy enough," he said, flicking the wipers on high speed. "If we can get through this weather."

"I just hope the remains have been secured, I'm afraid some of the evidence might wash away in rain like this," she said.

"The crime scene investigators here are used to these conditions, I'm sure your remains are fine," he comforted, pulling onto the interstate. They drove down the interstate at a cautious speed, and while Booth had not seen a Doppler radar image of the storm, he was quite sure that it was very dark, very wide, and passing straight over north Florida. It seemed that no matter how far they drove or how long they had been on the road, the rain never stopped.

"I don't know what I'd do if it rained like this in D.C.," Booth said a few minutes later as they pulled to the side of the interstate, parking the car and putting their flashers on. Most other drivers had done the same, because at this point the rain was coming down so hard that they could not see the hood of their own car. They could barely see two blinking pinpricks in the distance, the flashers of the car ahead of them.

"It's certainly a different climate," Brennan observed, seeming agitated. "I really hope they've secured the remains, this kind of rain could destroy valuable evidence…"

"Bones, it's fine," Booth insisted. "I'm sure they've got it covered, they live here, this is nothing new to them." She made a humming sound that did not seem to agree but didn't argue any further. Suddenly the sky was illuminated by a white hot strike of lightning. They both jumped and Brennan sucked in a sharp gasp. Simultaneously a peal of thunder roared around them, shaking the SUV.

"You okay?" he asked, and it was at that point she realized she was grasping onto his arm tightly. She let go immediately, folding her hands into her lap.

"Sorry, I…" She coughed, not knowing what she was sorry for.

"That was some lightning, huh?" he said, allowing her to bypass her awkward apology. She seized the offer and nodded.

"Yes, it was," she said. "It looked to be less than a hundred meters away."

"English, please?" he asked. She scowled at him.

"Roughly three hundred feet, or less," she clarified.

"Oh, like the length of a football field," he said. She shrugged.

"If that's how long a football field is, then yes. Did you know that the state of Florida has the highest average number of lightning strikes per year in the entire country?"

"I did not know that," he said, looking a little amused. "I also don't know how it is that you know that Florida has the most lightning strikes, but you don't know how long a football field is."

"I prioritize my intake of information, Booth. Football is useless knowledge; meteorology is science." Booth opened his mouth, ready to argue vehemently against the categorization of football as 'useless knowledge', but he then shut his mouth and shook his head instead. It wasn't worth arguing about, not when he knew it was a losing battle.

A few minutes later the storm lightened up to the point where he could see the road in front of them, and they continued on their way. It was still a fierce storm though, and they would have missed their turn onto A1A entirely if there hadn't been an ocean blocking them from driving any further east.

"You know, there's still an active archaeological site in St. Augustine. It's the oldest European-occupied city in the entire country, and they're still making new finds. I find that incredible."

"Yeah? Interesting," Booth said, having nothing useful to contribute to that conversation.

"Has Catherine ever come down to Florida to work at their marine bioscience labs?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said vaguely. "I haven't asked."

"Oh," was all she said. He started to open his mouth to ask her something about Hacker, before he realized that he didn't actually care about Hacker's life. In fact, he frequently wondered why Brennan was so curious about Catherine's work and personal life, but he had never asked her about her questions. He didn't want to unwittingly throw himself into an awkward conversation like the ones that had plagued their partnership over the past few weeks, so he kept his questions to himself.

By the time they reached St. Augustine Beach the rain had mostly passed them, still falling but nothing like what was coming down previously. They could finally see the ocean from the road, which had been obscured by the sheets of rain before. The waves were dark and choppy, and for as far as they could see out into the sky there was cloud cover. It was not an ideal day for a trip to the beach, that was for sure. Soon the view of the beach was blocked by rising dunes and clusters of houses and condos, and before long they saw a sign that read, "Sandbar Estates."

"That's the one," Brennan said, and Booth made a left turn into the neighborhood, which was lined in the front by palm trees and sand-hardy shrubs. The neighborhood itself was less of a neighborhood and more of a circular drive. The large expanse of grass in the 'donut hole' of the circle had a tennis court, a set of swings, and a few picnic tables with a grill pit. Along the right side were large, sprawling two-story houses, colored in typical beachfront deco and practically oozing money.

"Wow," Booth said as they slowly wound around the circle, easily finding the crime scene as it was the only house wrapped in yellow tape. "This is some neighborhood, huh?"

"Beachfront property is extremely valuable. I wouldn't be surprised if these houses were in the million dollar plus range," Brennan said. He nodded.

"I wonder how much it hurts the property value to have someone die in your house," he mused. She shrugged and zipped up her rain coat as he brought the car to a halt outside of the house. He pulled the hood over his head to protect him from the rainfall and they walked around the back of the house, where several crime scene investigators were still milling around.

"Seeley Booth, FBI," Booth said, flashing his badge at the first officer he saw.

"John Petre, St. Johns County Sheriff's Office, how're you doin'?" he asked, shaking Booth and Brennan's hands.

"Wet," Booth said, and the officer laughed. "This is my partner, Dr. Temperance Brennan."

"Nice to meet you," Officer Petre said, nodding. "The remains are over here, under the house." They walked with him across the wet grass to where the dune sloped down, turning quickly from sparse grass to sand. Around the back of the house was a wooden deck perched up on stilts, which had a staircase that wound around the front and side of it leading to the bottom of the dune. The officer lead them underneath the stilted deck, walking between the posts holding it up and beginning to climb up the slope. It was drier under here and Brennan was glad—it was less likely that any evidence would be lost under here. They continued to scale the dune until the stilts became much shorter, and they realized they were underneath the house itself at this point.

"Most properties along the beach are stilted," the officer explained as they practically crawled in the small space beneath the home. "Being so close to the water, if a bad storm comes through it wouldn't take much of a rise in the tide for the house to flood. This way if the water rises high, the house is still mostly safe."

"Makes sense," Booth said, finding it increasingly uncomfortable in the small space. Ever since the day he was locked in that toy submarine, small enclosed spaces gave him the serious heebie-jeebies.

"Here they are," the officer said, indicating slightly ahead to an area of dug-out sand where they could see the edge of the badly decayed remains. "We didn't move 'em out because we figured you'd want to see the way they were put in there and all."

"Thank you," Brennan said, struggling to reach back into her pockets in the cramped space and pull out a pair of rubber gloves. "That is very useful to me." She began pushing sand away from the bodies until she could properly see one of the faces, or rather, what was left of a face.

"What've we got, Bones?" Booth asked.

"Racial markers indicate Caucasian," she said. "Given the bluntness of the eye orbits and the robust mandible, I'd say male. Teeth indicate middle age, maybe forties. I'll be more able to tell once I see the full skeleton. The other one," she began, pausing to brush more sand away from the second skull she found, "also appears to be white, but sharp eye orbits and a smaller nasal aperture and more modest mandible indicate female. Teeth suggest middle age as well."

"So a white middle aged couple, then?" Booth asked. She nodded.

"It appears to be, although we'll need positive identification to know for sure."

"Right," he said. "Okay, well, let's get these guys bagged and on their way to the lab." They spent the next hour carefully excavating and bagging the partially-fleshed remains, and when they were done they were put in a truck bound towards Jacksonville.

"So how did these get found anyway?" Booth asked as they stood underneath the porch with the officer, shielded from the rain which was still coming down.

"Neighbors called. They said they smelled something dead, but we told 'em it was probably just the low tide smell. We've had a lot of die-offs wash onto shore lately, the low tide smell is terrible on hot days. But when the tide came up and it still smelled, we came to look. We thought maybe a dog had dragged something under the house maybe, but then we found… well, that. So we called you, and here you are."

"And that was this morning?" Booth asked. Officer Petre nodded.

"Yep, just after sunrise, around seven. We called y'all right after we saw how rotted they were."

"Gotcha," Booth said. "Okay, I'm going to need to talk to all of the neighbors over the next couple of days."

"Y'all sticking around?" the officer asked. Booth nodded.

"The remains are going up to our team, but we'll be here for a while working the case. What's your read on it? You're from around here, you know this area." Officer Petre chewed on the inside of his cheek for a minute before he spoke.

"Well, it's a real high-end neighborhood, I'm sure you noticed," he said. "But it's right on the beach, so anyone can walk up from the beach into the back of the neighborhood, it's not like it's gated or anything."

"Right," Booth said. "What about the people here? What are they like?"

"Well, they're alright I guess," Officer Petre said. "From a legal standpoint, you know, they never cause any trouble for us. They're a real close-knit neighborhood, lots of block parties—course we never get called out to 'em, not like the parties the spring break kids have down the beach a little further, towards Crescent Beach—and they're just a quiet group of people. Rich and quiet."

"No problems with any of them that you know?" Booth asked. Petre shrugged.

"I mean not that I know off the top of my head, but I reckon you'd have to look 'em up in the system to be a hundred percent sure. Everyone's got their secrets, especially in a neighborhood like this one. You know how it is."

"Any segment of society, whether it's an entire region or just one neighborhood, functions as its own distinct subculture," Brennan piped in. "They have their own customs, expectations, taboos, pastimes, even their own distinct dialect in some cases."

"Sounds about right," Officer Petre admitted. "These people are like their own little society. They keep to their own."

"That will make eliciting information problematic," Brennan said. "Distinct subcultures, as a general rule, do not divulge much about themselves to outsiders. Booth, remember the circus people we lived with?"

"Circus people?" Officer Petre interrupted. "Like, a _circus_ circus?"

"Yes," Brennan answered. "A traveling circus. Anyway, Booth, remember how we had to go undercover because otherwise they wouldn't cooperate with us? These people function in a similar way, as a distinct subculture. Often members of the elite upper-class see themselves as above the law, and they will protect both themselves and each other against law enforcement's attempts to bring them down to the level of the law. Fraud, money embezzlement, the economic collapse… white-collar crimes, and much more common than most people think. People in these types of elitist, wealthy subcultures see themselves as powerful enough to bend the rules to suit their needs. Breaking that will be very difficult." Booth considered her words, cracking his knuckles.

"Maybe," he said slowly, carefully considering something unspoken. "Hey Bones, did you see that "For Sale" sign outside the house next door? The blue one?" Brennan gave him a cautious look.

"You don't mean…"

"You said it yourself. They resist outsiders, they think they're above the law, and they're an exclusive, tight-knit group. There's no way to break through unless we become a part of that."

"More undercover work?" she asked, and he wasn't sure if she sounded apprehensive or excited, or both. He nodded.

"Yeah. I mean, if we can get the owner of the property to let us use the house, and who's going to say no to the FBI?"

"Well, legally anybody can, it's their third amendment right, no quartering without consent," she said. He shrugged.

"Yeah, but like I said, who's going to say no? We'll see. I think it's a good idea. What do you say, Bones?" She bit down on her bottom lip, then nodded.

"Well, I suppose you're right, it would be the most effective way to break into their social group and get the most information about the murder…"

"That's the spirit, Bones," he said, moving to put his arm around her shoulder like he always used to—but then, feeling the awkwardness of their partnership like a tangible barrier pushing them apart, he let his arm drop to his side instead.

"Well it sounds like y'all have it worked out," Officer Petre said. "If you need anything from us, just give me a holler."

"Will do, thank you," Booth said. He and Brennan left the scene, walking through the light drizzle back to the SUV parked outside of the yellow tape. Booth looked around hesitantly, making sure none of the neighbors were watching, then pulled one of the fliers out of the box on the edge of the yard. He slipped into the vehicle and looked down at the paper.

"Doesn't list a price," he said, pulling out of his cell phone. "Bet you it's seven figures." Brennan didn't respond though; she was too busy tending to the knot growing in her stomach. When they had gone under cover at the circus, it had been wonderful, but now? After what had happened between them? The last thing she could imagine was being with him every moment, day and night, sleeping under the same roof. Not that she didn't want to be with him, but the awkwardness between them… she was afraid it might break them, really break them. They were barely making it as it was, just seeing each other at work and maybe for a beer after they closed a case. Could they really survive another undercover operation?

She hadn't been paying attention as he spoke to the owner on the phone, but she became aware when he flipped the phone shut, grinning.

"They said yes," he said, practically buzzing. "They said they'd love to let us use the house for an undercover gig—well if, you know, we're real. She was kind of skeptical, but she said sure, if we're real then she'd be happy to. Said it'd be 'patriotic' for them, to help the bureau. How great is that? I told you they'd do it." Brennan smiled and nodded, but the smile didn't quite extend to her eyes.

"Yeah," she said as he revved up the engine. She looked out the window at the empty blue house, then at the water droplets on the window in front of it, blurring the building and sea beyond them. "Great."


	2. Trying to Remember Your Name

**A/N:** Fast update! I told you I was excited about this one, I didn't want to wait more than a day to post the next chapter. Also a few notes: Yes, I did change the title of this fic, after a few people pointed out that "The Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" was actually the title of a Bones episode. I had no idea, because I am a bad fan and I don't know the titles of most of the episodes. So I changed the title to something less clever but also less used.

Also, my second note is that May is Mental Health Awareness month. Mental illness and health is something that is very close to my heart, as someone who has struggled with mental illness since early childhood, and I feel that it is part of my duty to help break the stigma of mental illness. One of the #1 reasons why people do not seek treatment for their mental health disorders is because they are afraid of what other people will think of them. If there weren't such a negative stigma surrounding mental health disorders, more people would feel comfortable coming forward to get help. So every time I update this fic during the month of May, I am going to endow you with a mental health fact, to help spread the word and bust the stigma about mental health disorders.

So enjoy this chapter, and let me know what you think!

**FACT:**  
Roughly 1 in 4 American adults has a diagnosable mental health disorder in any given year.  
That's over 57 million people.

(via the NIMH)

* * *

_It's nothing but time and a face that you lose_  
_ I chose to feel it and you couldn't choose_  
_ I'll write you a postcard_  
_ I'll send you the news_  
_ From a house down the road from real love..._

_- Your Ex-Lover is Dead, Stars_

* * *

The sky was clear and streaked with orange and pink as they stood on the edge of the street, looking up at the large blue house. Although the sun had barely risen, the sticky beach breeze was already tangling through Brennan's hair, the taste of salt on her lips. They stood on the curb out of the way as a moving truck backed into the driveway, certainly loud enough to wake all of the surrounding neighbors.

"It shouldn't be long," Booth said, standing next to her with his arms crossed over his chest. He was in plainclothes, a pair of jeans and a Led Zeppelin t-shirt, and his badge was nowhere to be seen, tucked away into his pocket. She assumed his gun was on him somewhere, since he was rarely without one, but it was hidden away as well. To anyone else, they looked like happily married thirty-somethings moving into their dream home—that was the plan, anyway.

"So the truck is just for show?" Brennan asked. He nodded.

"The house came fully furnished, apparently the people who lived here before died—of old age," he added, seeing the mild alarm on her face. "Not murder, just old. So their daughter inherited the property, that's who's trying to sell it. But, you know, you kind of want it to look like we brought a _few _things of our own. It would be weird if someone moved somewhere without bringing any personal stuff."

"Right," she said, seeing someone out of her periphery. She was a tall blonde woman in a pink velour jogging suit, coming around the bend of the circle. "Look, I think it's a neighbor."

"Okay, great. Remember, we're not Seeley Booth and Temperance Brennan, okay? It's Sam and Christine." Brennan nodded—she thought remembering her alias would be less confusing if it had been a name that actually meant something to her. She just hoped that she wouldn't slip.

"Good morning," Booth said, waving to the blonde as she approached them. She slowed to a walk and pulled her earbuds out of her ears, resting a hand on her hip.

"Morning," she greeted, catching her breath. "You must be our new neighbors! I didn't realize they'd sold the house. I'm Lenore Abbott."

"Sam," Booth said, offering his hand. "Sam Parker. This is my wife, Christine." Brennan nodded a greeting to the blonde, who sized her up for a moment before turning back to Booth.

"Sam, Christine, it's nice to meet both of you. You must've snapped this place up fast, I thought the for sale sign was still up yesterday…"

"It was," Booth said. "But we saw this place and, well, it was perfect. We wanted to move in right away, right honey?" He put his arm around Brennan's waist, and she stiffened slightly. She nodded and carefully placed her hand on his chest, trying to look as natural as possible but feeling that his body was like hot stone beneath her touch.

"Right," she agreed. Lenore watched her with cold, flat blue eyes, to which her broad white smile did not reach. Brennan found everything about this woman to be false—her smile, her unusually white teeth, the shade of her hair, even her breasts seemed far too large and perky for her age. A full face of make-up (which Brennan also found odd for a seven AM jog) could not conceal that she was probably in her late 40s or early 50s.

"So," Lenore said loudly, breaking her gaze from Brennan and turning back to Booth. "Is it just the two of you?" They both nodded.

"Wonderful," she said. "Well, I'm going to let you go now, I still have another quarter mile to go. But we absolutely _must_ have you for dinner, Hank—my husband—will want to meet you. So will everyone else. In fact, I think I'll have a dinner party. Doesn't that sound lovely?" Brennan realized this question was directed at her, and she nodded.

"Oh, yes," she said, feeling as false as Lenore Abbott looked. "Lovely." Lenore nodded, continuing to smile as if it were a setting she had been tuned to.

"Fantastic," she said. "It's a plan, then. Ciao!" With that she took off, and as soon as she was out of earshot Booth turned to Brennan with a barely-concealed smirk.

"_Ciao_? Really?" he asked. Brennan snorted.

"She certainly was interesting," she said.

"Yeah, interesting's a word for it," he agreed. "What do you want to bet her plastic surgeon has a house like this down the street?" She nodded.

"Probably," she said.

"Okay, let's go set up everything that you'll need to connect to the lab, then later maybe we'll go introduce ourselves. Do rich people do that?" he asked. Brennan shrugged.

"I've never lived in a wealthy neighborhood, I don't really know," she admitted. "My apartment building is high-end, but living in an urban D.C. apartment complex is quite a different atmosphere from a beachfront neighborhood."

"Well, I guess we'll see," he said, walking with her towards the door. "Maybe they'll introduce themselves to us.

Booth's question about whether or not the wealthy introduced themselves was, at least in part, answered a few hours later, after the fake moving truck left. The movers had carried in several cardboard boxes that were packed with nothing but paper, stacked them in the garage, then left. Not even fifteen minutes after they had gone, the doorbell rang. Booth got up from the couch, where he had been staring out the windows onto the beach, and answered.

"Hey there," a tall, willowy woman greeted. Her brown curls were gently bleached from the sun and salt, escaping from behind her ears as a breeze blew past. Standing beside her was a solid man with dark features and a deep tan, also smiling. Two children stood in front of them, each one holding a basket filled with food. "I hope we aren't bothering you?"

"No, not at all," Booth said, stepping out of the way and letting them in. "Come on in, we just got things settled down."

"Wow, you moved in quick," the woman said, taking note of all the furniture. "I'm Lori, by the way. Lori Wilder. This is my husband Dave, and our kids, Darwin and Harmony." Booth resisted the urge to raise his eyebrows at their kids' names, and instead offered his hand to Dave.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Sam, and Christine is… in the back, organizing," Booth said, knowing that Brennan was still trying to hook up the feed to connect with the lab. "And we didn't have much to bring, the house came furnished from the previous owners."

"The Bates couple, right," Lori said, taking the baskets of food from the kids and setting them up on the kitchen bar. "Can you believe they died within a week of each other? Just like that. I'm telling you, it was a broken heart Mr. Bates died of. Isn't that romantic?" Booth smiled and nodded. This woman was as far from Lenore Abbott as it was possible to be—a multicolored skirt whirled around her legs, bangles and woven hemp bracelets hanging from her delicate wrists. Harmony was dressed similarly to her mother, and barefoot, and their son Darwin had a head full of blond dreads. Booth inwardly thought that he would sooner shave Parker bald than let him have dreadlocks.

"So which house do you live in?" Booth asked, eager to start making small-talk with these people and get to know them. That was their goal, after all.

"The one on the other side of the Hawkins' house. Well, what was the Hawkins' house. I just can't believe they're gone…"

"Wait, who?" Booth asked, realizing they were talking about the crime scene they had visited yesterday, the house next door.

"Didn't you see all the yellow tape yesterday around the front of the house?" Lori asked. "Maybe you weren't here. Our friends, they lived in the house between yours and ours, they were killed. Found their bodies up under the house."

"I didn't think they said anything in the news about who the… people were," Booth said, trying not to use words such as 'murder victims' that might give him away as being in law enforcement.

"Well they didn't," Dave said, taking the seat Booth offered them on the couch. "But who else could it be? We haven't seen Bill or Sheryl in over a week… they never said they were going anywhere, usually they have us pick up their mail while they're gone for work, you know? We just figured maybe it was a family emergency… but now, it has to be them. Who else could it be?" Lori sat next to Dave, her face strong but pained. Booth could tell that she was trying to mask what appeared to be a significant amount of pain.

"We were close to the Hawkins'," she said. "They were some of our best friends."

"That's awful, I'm sorry to hear about it," Booth said, taking careful mental notes.

"Thanks," Lori said. "But I don't want you to worry, this isn't a dangerous place by any means. What happened to them, we're all shocked, but it doesn't make me worry for their safety," she said, motioning over to where Darwin and Harmony were busying themselves emptying the baskets and lining up all the food items on the edge of the counter. They were both built tall and thin like their mother. The girl, who was maybe six, had a head full of light auburn hair and was covered in freckles which stood in stark contrast to her family, who were all rather tan.

"Hey, I… oh," Brennan said, not having heard the company enter the house. "Hi, I'm sorry, I didn't realize we had company."

"Hi there," Lori said pleasantly, standing up to greet her. "I'm Lori, you must be Christine." A look of confusion flitted across Brennan's features briefly before she remembered that yes, she was Christine.

"Right, yes," she said. "I am. It's nice to meet you." She sat next to Booth on the love seat, feeling the heat ripple off of him as he draped his arm over the back of the seat, fingers resting around the edge of her shoulder. She soon realized that she was perched on the edge of the cushion, as if she were ready to jump off of it. She scooted back, attempting to look normal. Not that she had ever done 'normal' very effectively, but she was acting now so it was worth a try.

"So what do you do for a living?" Lori asked.

"We work from home," Booth answered for them. "We sell medical supplies."

"Sounds boring," Darwin piped in, having apparently been listening to their conversation despite looking unengaged. Dave snorted and Lori chided.

"Darwin, that's not nice," she said. The boy shrugged.

"Sorry," he said. Booth smirked.

"Darwin, huh?" Booth asked. "That's some kind of name."

"Bet I'm the only Darwin you ever met," the little boy answered. Booth nodded.

"Yes, you are," he said.

"And there's like a million Sam's out there. Very unoriginal," the boy said. Booth was beginning to find the precocity of this child, who was maybe all of nine years old, supremely annoying.

"That's true," Booth said. "What about you two?" he then asked, turning his attention back to Lori and Dave. "What do you do for work?"

"I stay at home with the kids," Lori explained. "I used to teach, but now I home school them. I don't believe the public schools, or even the private schools, have enough to offer my children to make it worth them having to conform and live in the box that the system puts them in." Booth again resisted the urge to raise his eyebrows at their unconventional lifestyle. He thought Parker did just fine in his public school box, thank you very much.

"And I work in ecotourism," Dave said. "Up at the Guana Tolomato Matanzas estuary research reserve. Mostly kayak tours, taking people around the edge of the reserve so they can see what an estuary really is."

"That's very interesting," Brennan said.

"Thanks," Dave said. "It's my passion, you know, conservation work. That's how me and Bill originally became friends, he worked in conversation too."

"Bill as in, Bill Hawkins who used to live next door?" Booth asked. If this couple's intuition was right and the remains were those of the Hawkins', the more information he could get about them, the better. Lori nodded.

"Right," she said. "Bill and Sheryl were both into environmentalism, they were working to reverse the order on the Yankee Lake project."

"What's that?" Brennan asked. Lori and Dave's expressions both darkened.

"A bunch of corporate fat cats trying to destroy the ecosystem," Dave spat. "For years they've been trying to pass a bill to pipe water from the St. Johns River down to Seminole county, and they finally got their wish. By 2012 they're going to be pumping five and a half million gallons of water out of the river a day, for drinking water in that area. They're even pushing to pump as much as forty million gallons a day, for watering their lawns. Watering their lawns! They want to destroy the estuaries and a beautiful river, kill countless animals, demolish our natural resources, just so they can water their damn lawns."

"Dave," Lori warned, but he ignored her. He was clearly on a roll.

"No Lori, it's disgusting, it's shameful," he said. "And you know, they're probably the ones who killed Bill and Sheryl." She rolled her eyes.

"Because that doesn't sound like a conspiracy theory or anything," Lori said sarcastically. "Sorry, he just gets really… impassioned… about the Yankee Lake project. It really is a horrible thing, nobody up here wants it. It only passed because of all the voters in South Florida, they're all in favor of the project of course because it benefits them."

"I see," Booth said, wishing he could take out a notepad and write all of this down. He'd have to take notes as soon as they left.

"They have no idea how it's going to effect the estuaries," Dave said, gesturing angrily with his hands. "They claim it won't hurt the river, but they don't know that. Five and a half million gallons of water, you know how much that is? If it slows the flow of the river it could cause the estuaries to draw in too much salt water, disturbing the ecological balance and destroying…"

"Dave, honey, they don't care," Lori said, cutting him off while putting her hand on his arm. He sighed.

"Anyway, Bill and Sheryl, they were pushing it. They had a legal platform, a legitimate argument, and they were going to win. Now that they're gone… who knows what'll happen to the river," Dave said sadly. "It's a shame, is what it is. A damn shame."

"Mhmm," Lori agreed. "Well, we should really get going. I'm sure you guys still have a lot of unpacking to do and we don't want to keep you busy."

"Well thanks for stopping by," Booth said, rising to see them to the door. "And thanks for all the food, we really appreciate it."

"No problem," Lori said, waving him off. "You guys should come over for dinner sometime, we'd love to have you."

"Great, that sounds nice," Booth said. He waved them off and as soon as he shut the door, turned to Brennan with his eyebrows finally allowed to raise up as high as they wanted to.

"Talk about a bunch of earth-loving hippies," he said, sinking down onto the couch. Brennan shrugged.

"I found them much more pleasant than that Lenore Abbott woman," she said.

"Well, that's true," he said. "And what about all that with the environmental stuff? You think that might have anything to do with it?" She shrugged.

"It's possible," she said. "But before we begin speculating, we should wait until we actually have a positive ID on the bodies. It's possible that those aren't even the remains of Bill and Sheryl Hawkins to begin with."

"I guess," Booth said. "But I don't know, they've been gone for a week and then the bodies of two middle aged people show up stuffed under their house. That seems a little too much to be coincidence, don't you think?"

"Probably," she admitted, sounding tired. Keeping up the façade of a happily married couple was exhausting, given the situation. Every time she had to hug him, sit next to him, feel the warmth of his body emanating off of him, it felt like an exercise in restraint. Two parts of her, two dueling sensibilities—well, in reality, one sensibility battling one total irrationality—were pulling her down the middle and making every exchange a challenge. She had to learn how to pretend to love him, instead of how to pretend not to love him. It was a bizarre switch.

"So did you get the feed hooked up?" he asked. She nodded.

"Yes, it's all ready, that's what I had come in to tell you," she said. "I talked to Cam on the phone, she said they received the remains late last night. They should have identification by later this afternoon, she said she'd call."

"Great," he said, stretching back into the couch and looking up at the highly vaulted ceiling. The whole house was like a cavern—Spanish tile floors, high beamed ceilings, and a sprawling open floor plan that connected the kitchen, dining area, and living room into one large, barely partitioned living space. He thought that his entire apartment could probably fit into this area alone, without even taking into account the three bedrooms, loft, offices, and bathrooms.

"I'm going to go down to the beach, I think," Brennan said delicately, needing to escape closed quarters for a little while. "I'll be back."

"Okay," he said, nodding as she left. He watched her through the huge glass panes, which made up the entire side of the house facing the beach, floor to ceiling. He imagined how costly it would be if a hurricane blew through and damaged the glass wall, but at least that was none of his concern.

She disappeared down the flight of stairs that lead to the bottom of the dune from the wooden deck, then she reappeared down on the sand, a trail of footprints behind her in the soft earth as she headed towards the beach. She paused to roll up her jeans to her knees, and he wondered what she was thinking as she bent over, curling the hem of the pants up, exposing inch by inch of skin so white it mirrored the sugar sand. He continued to watch as she became smaller and smaller, finally reaching the water and gingerly stepping into the approaching tide.

If he had been there with her, he would have seen her face contort in shock at the chill of the water, cold from the recent storm. He would have seen the goose bumps rise up on her arms and legs, water splashing up and catching the edge of her pants despite her attempts to keep them dry. He would've seen the soft curl of her lips as she smiled, stepping further into the water until it reached half-way up her calves, watching the small silver fish dart around in the waves just beyond her reach. He would have seen the way the sun, fierce in the noonday sky, caused her to squint into the water as the waves caught the angle of the sun's rays, throwing back shards of fractured light.

He would have seen all of those things, but she was there, and he was here, and right now there was an ocean between them. He leaned his head back against the cushions, closed his eyes, and sighed.


	3. Anything You Can Feel

**A/N:** Okay, so it's been ten days since my last update. I do have a legitimate excuse, and its name is Migraine. The day I posted Chapter 2 I started having a migraine headache, and I have had a headache literally non-stop for the past 10 days. It waxes and wanes in intensity - sometimes it's a tolerable dull throbbing, other times I have to lay in the dark with earplugs and a cold rag for hours on end - but it has been fairly constant to some degree for the past week and a half. I get really mentally fuzzy when I'm having a migraine, so I try to avoid writing if I want the writing to be of half-way decent quality. So that is why I haven't updated lately, but this evening I've had a few hours of very mild pain so I took advantage of it and finished this up to post. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

Also, it is still Mental Health Awareness Month, so here are your mental health facts for the day:

**FACT:**

Over 30,000 people a year die by suicide in the United States.  
Of those who commit suicide, **over 90%** have a diagnosable and treatable mental illness at the time.

(via the NIMH)

Note: If you are feeling suicidal, you are not alone. Call a help line such as 1-800-SUICIDE to speak to a phone counselor at any hour of the day.  
They are completely anonymous and will not collect your personal information or trace your call. They are simply there to listen to you.  
If you feel that you are in danger of hurting yourself, call them.

* * *

_I don't know anymore_  
_ What it's for_  
_ I'm not even sure_  
_ If there is anyone _  
_Who is in the sun_  
_ Will you help me to understand?_  
_ 'Cause I been caught in between _  
_All you wish for and all you need_  
_ Maybe you're not even sure what it's for_  
_ Any more than me..._

_- In the Sun, Coldplay feat. Michael Stipe_

* * *

Booth and Brennan sat on the couch, laptop set open on the coffee table in front of them. They stared impatiently at the Jeffersonian's emblem on the screen until the feed finally cut on, opening a window into Brennan's beloved lab several hundred miles away. Cam moved into the view of the screen, giving them a wave.

"Hey guys," she said. "Sorry about that, we were having some computer issues. Nothing a little reboot couldn't fix, though. How's Florida?"

"Hot," Booth said, swallowing down a mouthful of granola, one of the many treats the Wilders left on their kitchen counter. It was a good thing their neighbors had brought food, since there was none in the house otherwise. Grocery shopping was something they hadn't thought of initially.

"Sounds like Florida," Cam said. "We got identification on both of the bodies through their dentals. A married couple, Bill and Sheryl Hawkins."

"Looks like Dave and Lori were right," Brennan said.

"Who?" Cam asked.

"Neighbors," Booth clarified. "We met some of them today, they thought the victims were friends of theirs who they haven't seen or heard from in a few days, the Hawkins'."

"Well, they were right," Cam said. "The last known address for the victims is where you found them. Looks like somebody killed them and buried them under their own house."

"So it's definitely a murder, then?" he asked.

"Well, I don't know how or why two people would bury themselves under their own house, so yes," Cam said. "Hold on, I'll get Wendell, he can tell you about what he's found so far." Cam disappeared from view, the sound of her heels growing more distant, and soon Wendell materialized where she used to be.

"Hey Dr. B, Agent Booth," he greeted. "So, I was looking over the bones after Dr. Saroyan and Hodgins took their tissue and particulate samples—God I love that flash macerator, it beats the hell out of waiting a week for the bones to clean and dry—and it's pretty obvious that they both died of blunt force trauma to the head."

"Can you show me the damage, Mr. Bray?" Brennan asked, and Wendell acquiesced, switching the feed over to the camera arm that he could maneuver over the remains on the table. He zoomed into the male skull.

"Blunt force trauma to the temporal and parietal bones, and further back, to the occipital, almost right on the lambdoidal suture," Brennan noted aloud, observing the skull fractures with a keen eye. "Multiple blows with radiating fractures that terminate into one another on the temporal and parietal. The blow to the parietal, near the coronal suture, that one was first, none of the radiating fractures terminate. Then the second blow, to the temporal bone, that one terminates into the initial blow to the parietal. And it looks like… Mr. Bray, can you please turn the skull so that I can see the third fracture better?"

"I think this was the one that killed him," Wendell said, turning the skull so that she could see the concave circle of fractures, like a spider's web. "Look at the inside of the skull." He then turned it so that they could view the inside of the skull through the foramen magnum, and Brennan could see blood staining on the inside of the cranium.

"Intracranial bleed," she agreed. "He hemorrhaged and bled out, that was definitely the fatal blow. Good work, Mr. Bray." Wendell nodded in thanks and set the skull down, picking up the other skull, belonging to the woman.

"This one only has one clean strike, also blunt force, to the back of the skull," he said, showing her the damage. "It's cracked clean through, and there's a lot of blood staining on the inside." He showed Brennan, and she nodded.

"That would definitely be a fatal blow as well," she said. "I think we can safely rule cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head, in both cases. Has Hodgins had time to analyze particulates, to see if the weapon left anything behind?"

"Not yet," Wendell said. "He's working on it now."

"Good," Brennan said. "Take casts of the fractures and start looking for anything that might match, as far as a murder weapon, and please call back Dr. Saroyan."

"Will do, Dr. B. See you guys later." Wendell disappeared, and Cam was back momentarily.

"All caught up?" she asked, and they nodded.

"So they were both hit in the head and killed… that's pretty violent. Sounds like it was personal," Booth observed.

"Maybe not," Cam said. "It might have just been a robbery gone wrong, who knows. Their next of kin live up in Pennsylvania, none down in Florida."

"I'll give them a call, then," Booth said. "Is that everything so far?" Cam nodded.

"Yep," she said. "I'm still waiting on some of the results from the tissue samples, but the initial tox screen came back clear. No drugs, no alcohol, not even as much as an aspirin."

"Okay, thanks guys," Booth said, and the feed cut out. He set his bowl on the coffee table by the laptop and sighed, rubbing his face with his hands. Brennan folded her legs up beneath her and picked at the noodles and peanut sauce stirred into the steamed vegetables. Apparently their new neighbors were also vegetarians, because they hadn't brought a single animal-based food item with them.

"The Wilders were right," Brennan said. "It was the Hawkins'. When are you going to call their family?"

"Tomorrow morning," Booth said. "It's nine thirty now, it's late for that. I'll swing by the FBI field office up in Jacksonville tomorrow and make the call, and pull some files from their computers to bring here."

"What kind?" she asked, slurping a noodle, irreverent to how rude that might be in mixed company. Regardless of the awkward tension that had buzzed between them like static, she still fell into certain normal, easy behaviors around him without thought—things like slurping her noodles, chewing on ice cubes, and cracking her back by leaning against the kitchen counter. Things she normally wouldn't do in the presence of others, but Booth wasn't _others_, he was Booth, no matter what stood between them.

"Well, their criminal records, financials, business papers, things like that," he said. "I also want to pull some info on the neighbors, see how they might be connected to the victims."

"You mean aside from being their neighbors?" she asked, and he nodded.

"Yeah, like if they worked together, or against each other, you know," he said.

"We can probably glean some of that information at Lenore Abbott's dinner party," Brennan pointed out. Booth grimaced.

"Oh right, I forgot the Stepford Wife is throwing us that shindig. Did she say when?" Brennan shook her head.

"No, but she seemed to mean it," she said. "What's a Stepford Wife?" Booth snorted, picking up both of their empty bowls and rinsing them in the kitchen sink.

"You never saw the movie?" he asked.

"Obviously not," she said. "Otherwise I would understand the context from which the slang term originated." He rolled his eyes.

"Right, of course," he said. "Well, nevermind. I'm going to go out to the beach for a little bit… do you want to come?" He asked her hesitantly, not knowing how his invitation would be interpreted. It was just a walk—a friendly, platonic, partner-y walk right along the bit fat red line. Just how she wanted it.

"I… suppose, yes. That would be nice," she finally agreed, brows knitting for a brief moment before she relaxed her face and nodded. What could a walk hurt?

They left their shoes at the door and made their way down the wooden stairs onto the beach, feet sinking into the cool sand. Whatever heat had been absorbed into the sugary surface earlier had dissipated, leaving only a cool stretch of white in either direction for miles, alight in the glow of a gibbous moon. As they meandered closer to the low, lazy tide, the sand turned hard and wet. Their feet barely gave way, leaving two sets of prints behind them—one large, wide around the toes, and heavy on the heels, while the other was small, narrow, and weighted on the inside, a mild pronation.

"Oh," escaped her lips as the water splashed up on her feet, toes sinking into the chilled sand. Without the sun to warm the water, even the shallows were much colder than to be expected. He shivered slightly, and in the moonlight she could see bumps raise up on his arms.

"Cold," he said. "Wasn't expecting that."

"It does cool down quite a bit when the sun sets," she observed. He shoved his hands into his pockets and she held hers awkwardly around her front, looking out on the water. It was calm and dark, gentle waves barely breaking the surface as they rolled in towards the shore. All of the sounds of the day—the gulls crying, children laughing and squealing in the water, throngs of teens and twenty-somethings tossing footballs and Frisbees, dogs barking, cars growling in low gear through the soft, deep sand—had disappeared, leaving nothing but the low, soft hum of the ocean. It breathed gently, in and out with each rush of cold water, and shushed them quietly, as if commanding the beach—_be still._

In that still, quiet moment, they both heard Booth's phone vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the screen briefly before sending it to voicemail and returning it to his pocket. She wanted to ask who it was, but didn't have to—it would be Catherine, surely, checking in. Asking how his day was, and sharing hers with him. Andrew had not called, and until that moment it hadn't occurred to Brennan to call him either. He hadn't really crossed her mind.

"That was Catherine," Booth said, answering the question Brennan did not ask.

"Why didn't you pick it up?" she did ask, since he had opened the door for discussion. He shrugged.

"It's late," he said, looking up at the two thirds of moon hanging overhead. In reality it was just shy of ten, hardly a late night for the pair who were often up well past midnight pouring over case notes, but she didn't argue the point. "Andrew hasn't called you?" he asked.

"No," she said. "He knows I'm busy, and I'm sure he is too. We don't talk much on the phone, to be honest. I find it inane."

Booth thought about the many 'inane' conversations she had engaged in with him on the phone—talks about Parker's little league hockey team, or his complaints about Rebecca's custody arrangements, his lament that he could not spend more time with his son, arguments about whether Wong Fu's or Thai King had the best Pad Thai in town—and how patiently she had listened, how thoughtfully she responded, how her deep, raspy laugh could be felt even through the phone. He thought about illustrating how frequently they engaged in these seemingly pointless conversations, and how often she was the one to initiate them, but he didn't. He just smiled, wiggling his toes in the wet sand.

"I'll call her tomorrow, I guess," he finally said. "After I call Bill and Sheryl's family up north. I should check in and see how she is." Brennan nodded.

"You probably should," she said, in an airy sort of way that he couldn't quite pin. "I suppose I should probably call Andrew as well."

"He'd probably like that," he said. "He'd like to just hear your voice, hear you ask about him. It shows you care."

"I'm aware," she said, and now he really was puzzled by her tone. Normally he could read the subtleties of people like an open book—their facial expressions, the tone of their voice, the slump of their shoulders—but she was being unusually nondescript, her face illuminated in profile. They didn't say anything for a while, until the tide had retreated so far out that their feet were no longer being washed over by water at all.

"I think I'm going to go to bed," she said shortly after stifling a yawn. He nodded and followed her back up the beach and into the house. They parted ways, she heading towards the master suite while he bedded in a room on the opposite end of the split house, utilizing the guest bathroom as his own. He listened to the sound of her sink turning on and off on the other side of the house, sound carrying loudly across the Spanish tile, and her light footfalls as she crossed the hallway into the bedroom. The door closed gently, then opened a minute later as he was patting his face dry.

"Goodnight, Booth," she said, her voice small from the other end of the house. Quiet as it was, it still traveled up his back like the touch of soft, lazy fingers running the length of his spine.

"Night, Bones," he responded, and he heard the pregnant pause before she shut her bedroom door. It was the same pause he took, full and heavy, standing in the doorway of the bathroom. It ached and pulled, sank into his chest, and when he did hear the door click shut, he sighed.

As he settled down into the pink-sheeted mattress, he heard his phone vibrate on the bedside table yet again. He picked it up for only a moment, checking to be sure that it wasn't Rebecca calling about Parker. When he saw the name on the caller ID he hit 'ignore', set the phone face-down on the table, and pulled the lamp chain, casting the room into darkness save for the cold, bright eye in the sky staring in through the window.

* * *

**PS:** There is no such thing as a "flash macerator." I made it up because it annoys me in the show that they go from having a gooey, disgusting partially fleshed body to a perfectly clean, dry skeleton in what appears to be less than 24 hours. In reality it takes between 4-7 days to fully deflesh human remains via maceration, and another 3-4 days under a drying hood before the bones are ready to be handled for forensic purposes. However, I understand that the show would be a lot less interesting if they had to spend 10 days sitting around the lab waiting for the skeleton to boil clean and dry, so I suspend reality for the purposes of my viewing pleasure, and I am also suspending that same reality in this fic. And now you are more educated about maceration than you probably ever cared to be. Reviews are love, let me know what you think!


	4. You're Not Where You Belong

**A/N:** I told you I hadn't given up on this story! Muse did for a while, however. She lost her chapter-writing mojo and only wanted to work on oneshots for a little while. But now we're both back in action and managed to get this rather large chapter written today. I tried not to inundate you with information but I think I lost that battle... hopefully it is not hugely difficult to follow. This did not get proof-read because I wanted to get it up and posted as soon as possible, so please forgive any errors. I will be going through it again tomorrow and fixing whatever I find wrong... for now I am exhausted (spent an entire day with my family, who I love dearly but can be very tiring) and once this is up, I'm going to sleep. I promise to not wait a month to update this again. I think now that Muse is back in her groove, the updates will be of average frequency again.

Anyway, I'm sure you didn't care about any of the above. Enjoy this chapter, and let me know what you think!

* * *

_They say that things just cannot grow_  
_Beneath the winter snow_  
_Or so I have been told_

_They say we're buried far_  
_Just like a distant star_  
_I simply cannot hold..._

_- Winter Song, Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson_

* * *

The next morning when Booth returned home from the FBI field office, arms laden with files, he found a small envelope tucked neatly between the front door and its frame. The envelope was light pink and smelled strongly floral, as if someone had sprayed it with perfume before leaving it behind. He could only assume that the swooping, calligraphic handwriting in purple ink on the front belonged to Lenore Abbott.

When he entered the house, he smelled something a little earthy and a little spicy coming from the vast kitchen. When he rounded the corner out of the welcoming hallway, he saw Brennan standing at the kitchen counter, chopping vegetables. Her hair was pulled into a messy bun and she kept blowing one stubborn, escaped piece out of her face as she chopped.

"I guess you got food?" he asked, setting the stack of files and the envelope down on the counter with a loud thud. She nodded, not looking up from her work lest she lose a finger.

"I took the rental," she said, referring to a rental car the FBI had loaned them. It made them seem more legitimate, having two cars. They had already traded out Booth's government-issue Sequoia for a more covert vehicle without government plates. "It has a GPS, but I didn't know the name of the supermarket here so that took a while."

"What are you making?" he asked, wandering over to her side and watching her chop the carrots into long strips. When she blew the piece of hair out of her face, he reached over and tucked it behind her ear for her. The involuntary shudder she gave did not escape either of them, but she spoke as if unaffected.

"Stir fry," she answered, picking up the cutting board and taking it over to the pan where the oil was just hot enough to pop when the vegetables were dumped in. He picked up the small envelope between his thumb and index finger and opened it.

"For lunch?" he asked.

"Yes, or dinner," she said. "What's that?"

"Our dinner," he said, handing her the dainty card. She scowled at it as if it were distasteful to look at—and in a way, with the sweeping cursive and soft pastels that were more reminiscent of a bridal shower invitation, it almost was—and read aloud.

"You are cordially invited to a dinner party to celebrate the arrival of our new neighbors, Sam and Christine Parker. Dinner will be served at six o'clock at the home of Hank and Lenore Abbott. Dress to impress. _Répondez, s'il vous plait_."

"What does that mean?" he asked.

"RSVP. Please reply," she clarified.

"Why couldn't she just say that?" he asked with a harrumph. "And why am I being told how to dress at my own dinner party?" He continued grumbling to himself until he realized that Brennan was laughing very quietly but very hard, back turned to him, tending to the stir fry. He could see her shoulders shake and her head bow down as she tried to stuff her laughter, mostly with success, but not unseen.

"Yeah, yeah, you keep laughing," he said. "You're forgetting that this means you have to put on a dress and heels and rub elbows with all those snotty rich housewives. And you have to act like you like it." Brennan turned with her nose wrinkled, the realization slowly coming over her.

"Do I have to?" she asked, and for a brief moment Booth felt as if he was looking down at Parker, shoulders slumped, asking in his worst whining voice, _Do I have to?_ Usually it was in reference to cleaning his room or eating anything green. Brennan was without the whine or shoulder slump, but the look in her eyes was the same—a clear, unvoiced plea.

"Yes," he said. "We're supposed to be wealthy and sociable, we're supposed to drink tea with our pinkies out," he said, making a ridiculous face and sipping on a small, imaginary teacup with his pinkie finger erect. Her face split into a grin and she couldn't help but laugh at his bad impression. "We're supposed to talk about the stock market and, I don't know, our summer house in the Hamptons, and whatever other crap people like that talk about at dinner parties. I don't know, I've never even been to a 'dinner party' before."

"I have," she said. "Well, sort of. Occasionally the Jeffersonian hosts a dinner gathering for the board members, as well as some of the more distinguished researchers at the institution."

"Sounds exciting," he said, and his sarcasm didn't escape her. She frowned.

"They are interesting," she insisted. "It's a very intellectual environment, at least at our end of the table." She then admitted, "I don't mingle much with the board members, except when Dr. Goodman introduces me to them, as if we aren't already acquainted. I think he wants me to make small talk with them."

"He's trying to get more funding for your department," Booth said. "That's why anyone goes to those things, it's all about money."

"I suppose you're right," she said, tossing the stir-fry a few times in the pan before pushing it out into two bowls. "Well, at least we'll be able to learn more about the neighbors at this dinner party, perhaps learn something about the victims."

"Yeah, that's what I'm hoping for. Thanks," he said, taking the bowl she offered him. They both sat on barstools at the counter, laying open the FBI files in front of them and browsing them quietly as they ate. They could have very well been a married couple that way—eating lunch together in casual dress, flipping through magazines or reading the parts of the morning paper they had yet to read. But they weren't married, and they weren't flipping through magazines—they were working, solving a murder, as partners. She continually reminded herself of that as she half-read the file in front of her, thinking she should've added less garlic powder to the dish.

"Says here that Bill worked in the same conservation park as Dave Wilder does, the estuary reserve park," Booth finally said about twenty minutes later, after they had finished eating and relocated to the couch. The laptop was sitting open on the coffee table in front of them, next to where Booth had his feet propped up. Brennan sad with hers folded delicately beneath her, browsing another of the many files.

"I wonder how someone working in ecotourism could make enough money to live in a place like this," Brennan mused aloud.

"Well, Sheryl's job probably had something to do with it," he said, handing Brennan the folder he had just closed. "Apparently she was the Financial Director of GreenLight Energy Initiatives."

"What's that?" she asked. Booth pulled the laptop into his reach, pulling up a search page and typing it in. The first result was the company's website.

"GreenLight: Energy for a Lifetime," he read aloud from the company's page. "Providing eco-friendly energy options nationwide since 2006." He continued to browse the web page, relaying information to Brennan as he went.

"So they're a utility company, then?" she asked.

"Apparently," he said. "Looks like they specialize in the newer, 'greener' energy options—wind turbines, biomass, solar, things like that. They've got locations in California, Illinois, Florida, all up the east coast. Seems like a pretty big business, if she's that high up the corporate ladder there then she must be making a ton of cash."

"That would explain all this, then," she said, gesturing in general to the sprawling beach house neighborhood they presently found themselves in.

"Yeah, no kidding," he said. "I'll have someone at the field office look into GreenLight, dig a little more into their company. If she was the financial director and something was going wrong, that might be motive for someone to come after her."

"It's possible," Brennan said. She looked up at the clock on the wall and closed the file in her lap. "We need to start getting ready if we're going to be on time to the dinner party."

"What? It's only three thirty," Booth said.

"Right," she said, standing. "And dinner is at six. So we need to be there by five at the latest, to mingle before we eat."

"Says who?" he asked. She sighed.

"It's just etiquette," she explained. He snorted.

"Since when are you an authority on etiquette?" he asked. She frowned.

"You know, I've been to more than one high-end event in my life, Booth. I attend publisher's parties, events for the Jeffersonian, publicity events… I am aware of how these things work, whether or not I understand or enjoy them." He groaned, shutting the computer and setting it aside. When he stood, his back popped more than once.

"Fine," he said. "You're the boss."

Just shy of five PM they left the house, walked half-way around the large C shape that was the neighborhood loop, and found themselves in front of the Abbott residence. They stepped back to survey each other one more time before ringing the doorbell. Booth looked causal but put together in slacks and a collared shirt, and Brennan had apparently, in addition to her grocery store run, also made a trip to a department store to pick up a semi-formal cocktail dress.

When asked why, she shrugged and said, "Well, I didn't bring one, and being in a neighborhood like this I assumed I would need one at some point." He was always amazed by how much more she thought ahead than he did. He was good at thinking on his feet, but she was better at planning for the unexpected ahead of time. That was, he assumed, why they usually had most situations covered between the two of them. If she hadn't foreseen it, he could roll with the punches as they came.

"Hello?" she said, snapping him to the present.

"What?" he asked.

"I asked if you were ready," she said. He looked up from the slight sheen on her maroon dress, knee high, modest around the neckline but sleeveless to show off her arms. He swallowed and nodded, leaning in and rapping against the hard, dark mahogany door with his knuckles.

He had barely pulled his hand away when the door opened, and Lenore Abbott stood on the other side of it. She wore a slinky black dress that showed a little more leg and a lot more cleavage than necessary.

"Well hello!" she nearly squealed, leaning in and embracing Brennan's shoulders as she kissed her on the cheeks. Brennan patted her awkwardly on the back for a moment before she was released. She scowled as she watched Booth's face contort in mild horror when the same was done to him, only when Lenore embraced him her hands gripped his biceps firmly, giving them a good squeeze.

"Ooh, look at you," she said, leaning back and looking him over with a curled smile. "So firm, you must lift weights." She placed her hand on his chest and ran it firmly down his middle to his lower abdomen, running her fingers along his firm stomach. Booth sucked in his gut reflexively—the older woman's touch both tickled and made him extremely uncomfortable—and she laughed.

"Well come in, come in, everyone's been waiting for you," she said, ushering them in. Booth looped his arm through Brennan's, and she patted his bicep with a smirk.

"You're already quite popular," she whispered into his ear. He grimaced and shook his head.

"She freaks me out," he admitted in a low voice, his breath hot on her neck as he whispered into her ear, and Brennan stifled a laugh as they were lead through the foyer into the main of the house. It was laid out similarly to theirs—the living and dining areas flowed into each other, with only a counter bar dividing the kitchen from the rest—and a collection of people watched them round the corner, all eyeing them with polite curiosity.

"Everyone, this is Sam and Christine Parker, they just moved into Bates' place. Sam, Christine, let me introduce you to everyone." Booth made another pained face as Lenore took his free arm, the one not entwined with Brennan's, and dragged the couple around the expansive room.

"These are the Marrones," Lenore said, gesturing towards a short, dark-haired man in a suit and tie. His fingers were heavily adorned with gold rings, and a chain hung from his neck. His face was broad and olive colored, nose large, eyes set close together. He shook Booth's hand, and Booth was surprised by how abnormally firm his grasp was. As if to return the favor, Booth strengthened his grip, and was pleased by the temporary look of surprise that flitted across the man's features.

"Giovanni," the man introduced, his voice heavily tainted with Long Island. "And this is my wife, Joanna." The woman, who was petite, dark skinned, and very self-assured, gave both Brennan and Booth her hand.

"Nice to meet both of yous," she said, her own voice nasally and as heavily accented as her husband's.

"Lovely," Lenore said, and before Booth or Brennan could speak another word to the Marrones, she was dragging them off in yet another direction. This time, it was to a man Booth had briefly noticed in a photo on the wall.

"Hank!" Lenore called out, bringing the man's attention to her. He smiled broadly and set his drink down on the table, pushing his way past a mousy young girl to get to them.

"Hank, this is…"

"Sam, right? I'm Hank, Lenore's husband, nice to meet you," he introduced, completely blowing off Lenore's barely-uttered attempt to introduce them. Hank was nearly as broad as he was tall, and could likely fill a doorframe in both directions. He was mostly bald but probably not past his early fifties, face just beginning to be touched with age. His voice was as loud as he was large, and when he turned to Brennan he let out an unabashed whistle.

"You must be Christine!" he said, offering her his hand as well. Rather than shaking it, though, he took it into his and brought it to his lips, bestowing a kiss onto the back of her hand. "Pleasure to meet you, gorgeous." Brennan saw a seething look cross Lenore's face, but as soon as the blonde woman became aware of Brennan's gaze she quickly masked over it with the same smile she had given them on the street yesterday—the one that did not reach her eyes.

"Aren't they lovely?" Lenore asked her husband, who nodded, barely paying attention to her and not having yet released Brennan's hand.

"They most certainly are," he said, giving Brennan a wink. Booth stood a little taller and slipped his arm around Brennan's waist. Despite the current awkwardness between them, she found that she did not mind the gesture at all, and was all the more grateful for it when it made Hank Abbott finally relinquish his grip on her hand.

After the less than enjoyable introduction to Hank, Lenore left them alone to mingle on their own. They made brief conversation with a few people, then found Lori Wilder, the neighbor they had met the previous day. When Lori caught sight of them she waved, and Brennan was surprised and somewhat amused to see Lori 'dressed to impress' as the invitation had requested. Her dress was green and knee-length, cut down the front in a modest V, and low enough in the back to expose part of her tanned skin. But the bangles and hemp bracelets still jangled around her arms, and her curly hair was left free to do as it pleased.

"I know," were the first words out of Lori's mouth when Brennan approached her, gesturing down towards her dress and heels. "I hate this get-up, it's practically the only nice thing I've got. But you know Lenore… well, if you don't already, then you will soon. She probably would've locked me in the guest bedroom if I hadn't shown up half-way decent." Brennan laughed, and Lori smirked as she sipped her drink.

"This is quite nice," Brennan observed.

"It's alright," Lori said. "I'm not really into these sorts of things, but it is nice to get together with the neighbors and chat, even if I have to look like this."

"Where's Dave?" Booth asked. Lori rolled her eyes.

"He stayed home with the kids," she said. "_I already met them, I don't need to put on some monkey suit and listen to Hank boast about destroying the planet just so I can meet them again._" Her impression of her husband was ridiculous and so amusing that Booth snorted into his drink, which had been presented to him by Lenore without request.

"I'd say he has the right idea," Booth admitted. Lori smiled.

"I knew you were more like us," Lori said. "I just got that kind of feeling from you, good vibes. You guys are welcome over to our place for dinner tomorrow night, if you don't get totally burnt out by this."

"Thank you, that'd be great," Booth said, knowing that the more opportunities they had one on one with the neighbors, the more information they could glean about the victims and the neighborhood in general, especially from the victims' best friends. That, and he actually found himself liking the Wilders more and more.

"And you won't have to 'dress to impress' for us, either," Lori added quickly as Lenore announced that dinner was ready.

Rather than seating themselves at the dining room table, which had been laden with finger foods and a self-serve mini bar, the guests were lead into an enclosed, air conditioned back porch—which Booth learned was referred to as a 'Florida room'—where they were seated at possibly the longest dining table he had ever seen. There were twelve guests in total, and it seated all of them comfortably. Through the glass panes they could see the sky above the ocean beginning to darken as the sun waned, though still not near setting.

"I hope everyone likes steak," Lenore said as she took her seat, while two women in blue uniforms and white smocks began bringing out dishes and setting them in front of the guests. Booth felt more like he was at a restaurant than a neighborhood dinner party, and felt awkward thanking the maid who handed him his plate, pre-loaded with steak, fresh greens, and two things he could not identify to save his life. He looked to his side and saw Brennan eye the steak warily, and he knew she was trying to think of a polite way to announce her vegetarianism.

He had been extremely impressed by her decorum over the past few days—he had not expected this level of politesse when she morphed from Brennan to Christine. Not that she was generally rude, but she had a habit of being blunt to a fault at times. She had kept that so well in check that, were it not for their moments alone in the house where Sam and Christine became Booth and Brennan again, he might wonder if he was living with a different person entirely.

"And the rice pilaf for you?" the maid asked, handing the dish to Lori, who had seated herself next to Brennan. Brennan looked over at her dish, and Lori took one look at Brennan's face and smiled.

"You don't eat meat either, huh?" she asked, knowing the expression. Brennan shook her head.

"No, but I don't want to be…" she grasped for the right word.

"Obnoxious? Don't worry, Lenore is obnoxious enough, she won't notice." Brennan tried to cover her snort of laughter by turning it into a cough, and Lori raised her fork at the maid who passed by.

"Excuse me, can we please get another rice pilaf here? Thanks." Brennan was impressed by the woman's straightforward, unabashed nature. She stuck out at this gathering like a sore thumb, and she did not seem to care in the slightest.

They were half-way through their meals, each taking their turn to compliment Lenore on the wonderful dinner (which she clearly did not make herself, but was lauded for nonetheless), when the questions began flying across the table.

"So, Sam," began a man with light brown hair, flecked with grey, who had previously introduced himself as John, "what do you do for a living?"

"Medical supplies," Booth said, just as rehearsed. "We sell medical supplies online, do national shipments." The table nodded, and Booth was pleased that their façade seemed to be passing inspection.

"Working from home, that must be nice," Hank Abbott, Lenore's husband, said. "I make the drive up to Jacksonville every day, you wouldn't believe the traffic once you get off A1A and onto the interstate towards the city." This launched them into a conversation about city traffic which neither Booth nor Brennan was interested in, so while Brennan turned back towards Lori and continued to speak to her, Booth tuned his attention to John and the teenaged girl sitting next to him.

"Is this your daughter?" Booth asked, motioning towards the girl.

"Oh, yes, this is my daughter Olivia," he said. "Liv, why don't you tell Sam about yourself?"

"Uhm…" she said awkwardly, maintaining as little eye contact with Booth as possible. She was tall and thin, still in the awkward, gangly stage of adolescence. Thick glasses frames gave an angular look to an otherwise smooth, round face, spattered with freckles and partially hidden behind a fringe of mouse-brown bangs.

"Liv is in seventh grade," John said, since the girl was not offering much. "Well, going to be, once school starts up in the fall."

"How old are you, Liv?" Booth asked kindly. The girl seemed painfully shy, so much that a blush crept over her cheeks just by being asked a simple question.

"Twelve," she muttered.

"That's nice," Booth said. "I have a son, he's nine." It was at that moment that he realized his contradiction—he had told Lenore Abbott that they had no children. He quickly added, "He's from my first marriage, he lives with his mom out of state."

"I've got a son about that age too, Aiden. He's home with his mom right now… they're both sick," John said, shifting in his seat. "In fact, Liv, we might want to go home and check on them here soon." The girl's eyes shot up to her father's face, and the look of pleading did not escape Booth's keen perceptions. His brows furrowed a bit, but he masked it for the time being.

After dinner was finished, the large group made their way back into the home where coffee liquors and finger desserts were laid out on the countertops. As they continued to mingle, Booth decided to corner Hank for a bit, get a better feel for him.

"Sam," Hank said as Booth approached him, clapping him on the back. "Glad you came over here, haven't had much of a chance to talk to you. You know how the wives can be, always dragging you around." Booth smiled and nodded, not knowing how else to adequately respond.

"Yeah," he said half-heartedly. "Lenore seems… nice, though."

"She's nice as long as she's got my credit card," Hank scoffed, taking another sip of his scotch. Judging by the redness in his face and the volume of his voice, this was not his first. Again, Booth did not know how to respond, so he simply made an indistinct humming noise.

"So what is it you said you do for a living?" Booth asked. Hank finished the rest of the scotch in one fell swoop, letting the ice clink against the class as he set it down hard on the counter.

"Contracting," he said. "I'm a general contractor."

"I see," Booth said. "Working on any interesting projects right now?"

"Just that damn Yankee Lake deal," he said. "It's been the biggest pain in my ass now for over two years. Those grimy earth-loving hippies just won't leave it alone, we're getting blocked at every turn." He picked up the bottle of scotch and poured another, the amber liquid nearly touching the brim when he was done. A bit spilled over the edge onto the counter when he picked it up, pressing his lips to the edge and taking a swig before continuing.

"Those people just can't handle progress… they want us all eating grass and tofu, you know what I mean? I didn't claw my way to the top of the food chain to eat rabbit food, damn it, and I didn't work my ass all the way up to where I am to have some tree-hugger stop the biggest project our group has had in years."

"Right," Booth said, feeling it better at this point to simply agree and keep asking questions, to elicit as much information out of the man as possible. "That must be a really lucrative deal, right? That water-piping project?"

"Hell yeah it is," Hank nearly yelled. "We're talking a billion dollar plus project, do you know how much of my personal funds I've invested in that damned thing? When it finally goes through, once the pipes are laid and the water's flowing, I could be looking at seven digits. _Seven digits_," he repeated in a loud whisper. "This is the biggest project I've ever worked on. If it goes through, once the ink is dry and the pipes are wet, the money's as good as in the bank."

"What if it doesn't go through?" Booth asked. "I mean, you know, what if the environmentalists win their court case and the project gets halted?" Hank shook his head vehemently.

"No, no, that won't happen," he said. "There's too much money in it, they can't just flush the project like that. Nobody'll stand for that, not the people who've got money put into this thing. We've put in too much, there's too much at stake for a couple of granola-eaters and their little birdie friends to go fuck it up."

Booth kept up the chat with Hank until it somehow turned into football, and at that point people began trickling out of the house. He caught Brennan's eye from across the room, where she stood with a small cluster of women, and her expression clearly said _Let's go._ He tilted his head towards the door and she began walking in that direction.

"Leaving so soon?" Lenore asked with a pout when Booth told her they were going to head home. She rested her hand on his arm, giving it yet another squeeze.

"Yeah, we wish we could stick around, but…"

"Oh, I understand, moving can be just so exhausting," she said sweetly, her voice syrupy and, to Brennan, increasingly obnoxious by the syllable. "Well, it was wonderful to have you; we absolutely _must_ do this again." Brennan gave a strained smile and nodded, and they were blessedly out the door within the next minute.

When they got home, they both sank down onto the couch and sighed, nearly in unison.

"That was…" Booth began.

"Exhausting," she finished. He nodded.

"No kidding," he said. "But I found out a lot of interesting things, especially about Hank Abbott."

"Can it wait 'til the morning?" she asked. "I'm too tired to even think about people right now, I just want to get out of these heels and sleep." Booth laughed, and she stared at him.

"What's so funny?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "Just something about you complaining, it's… I don't know."

"I don't know what any of that means," she said, rising from the couch. "I'm going to take a shower before bed, so please don't run any water. I'll see you in the morning."

"Okay. Good night, Bones," he said, and she waved him off as she headed down the hallway. He heard the bathroom door shut and the shower turn on, and he smiled and shook his head.

He didn't know how to describe her—the way she leaned into the couch, closing her eyes as she sighed through her nose. The way she pulled one heel off with her toe, flinging it a few feet away and shortly following it with the other. The way the middle of her forehead wrinkled together when she was tired, as if she were frustrated with her own inability to fight off the need to sleep. The way she had allowed his arm to loop through hers at the dinner party, and for his hand to drift to her waist and hold her close as they interacted with the other couples.

_The real couples,_ he had to remind himself mentally. He frowned and got up from the couch, going back into the smaller bedroom where he had slept the previous night. When he put his arm through hers and she rested her other hand on his forearm, he wanted to believe she wasn't just acting the part—that the warmth of her hand, that the gentle chill that ran up his spine when his arm rested comfortably in the curve of her waist and she leaned into him, that it was real.

But he could not, and would not, tangle their façade with reality. He could not allow himself to even entertain the notion that the soft squeezes, the gentle leans, the easy embraces, were a reality for them. They were not. They were a fake couple, with a fake love, one that he so badly wanted but she could not reciprocate except under a false identity. This thought grated against him the most as he angrily undid the buttons on his shirt, flinging it onto the pile of dirty clothes the corner of the room that now served as a makeshift hamper. She could pretend to love him, but she would not commit to the possibility in reality.

As he spit the last of the toothpaste out of his mouth, he heard his phone vibrate against the wood surface of the bedside table. He took a glance at the missed call when he flopped down onto the bed, and ignored it without a second thought. This was now two nights in a row that he had ignored her calls—if she did not get the hint by now, then she was not as brilliant as she had originally seemed to be.

On the other end of the house he heard the water turn off, and her gentle footsteps across the tiled hall into the master bedroom. The door clicked shut, and with that he sighed and flipped over, pressing his face against the pillow.

_Reality, Seeley,_ the ocean seemed to tell him, in soft, gentle whispers as the tide swept over the sand. _This is not reality. Don't get too attached._


	5. A Tight Grip on Reality

**A/N:** I told you Muse was back in action. :) I finally finished the first of my two summer classes, so now I have two weeks of blissful vacation before I go back for my next class. Aside from work (and working on my new house, which we are in the process of renovating... not fun at all), that means I have nothing to do for the next 2 weeks but write my little heart out. And that is fully what I intend to do! (Unless Muse becomes uncooperative again... let's hope not.) Anyway, enjoy this chapter, and let me know what you think!

* * *

_And I've always lived like this_  
_Keeping a comfortable distance_  
_And up until now I had sworn to myself_  
_That I'm content with loneliness_  
_Because none of it was ever worth the risk..._

_- The Only Exception, Paramore_

* * *

The next morning, Brennan woke to the sound of thunder rattling the walls of their beach house. It only took a moment for her to get her bearings and realize that it was pouring outside. She could hear rain pounding against the roof, and was not surprised when she opened the window curtains and was barely able to see the beach, though it was less than a hundred yards from the house. The thick sheets of rain had reduced visibility to zero, and if it weren't for the sound of waves pounding the sand she would not even know the ocean was there.

"Some storm, huh?" Booth said in greeting as she wandered down the hallway into the living area, half-heartedly pulling her hair up away from her neck and into a bun.

"How long have you been up?" she asked, stopping in the middle of the living room and turning to the huge glass panes that defined the east-most wall of the house. Nearly the entire far wall was composed of nothing but glass, giving a perfect view of the torrent raging outside.

"Since about four," he admitted. She turned to the clock against the wall—seven thirty. "The thunder got me up, I can't believe you slept through it for this long."

"Heavy sleeper," she said, pouring soy milk over her muesli and carrying it over to the couch where he sat, facing the window wall. They both ate in silence, the smell of his sausage and eggs still lingering in the air, just watching the rain. They didn't speak, not because of awkwardness (though that had been a major barrier to communication between them as of late) but because they did not need to. The storm spoke for them, to them—it commanded their silence.

"Doesn't rain like this in D.C.," he finally observed. She shook her head.

"No, it doesn't," she agreed.

"Hurricanes don't usually hit the coast up here, do they?" he asked, his voice only barely tinged with worry.

"Rarely," she said. "They almost always come in on the gulf side. This isn't hurricane weather anyway—I've been in one, this is light rain comparatively." He made an indistinct humming sound and they returned to their silence.

"How has Andrew been?" Booth asked lightly, and when Brennan turned her gaze in his direction she saw that he was not looking at her, but down at his sausage, which he was cutting into pieces with his fork in a mildly aggressive manner.

"I don't know," she responded, and it was an honest answer.

"You haven't talked to him yet? It's been, what, four days?" She gave him a slight frown, brows pulling together.

"Why does it matter?" she asked, and he immediately shrugged in a rough, dismissive way.

"It doesn't," he said. "I mean, I was just curious, that's all."

"Oh," she said, baffled by his sudden gruff tone. She felt that he was not being entirely forthright with his feelings, but for all she knew she could simply be reading too much into his response. She was not the most adept at reading emotional responses, this she knew.

"How has Catherine been?" she asked carefully.

"Fine," he said.

"So you finally answered her call?" she asked, the words slipping out before she could consider their possible implications. He got up from the couch, walking his empty plate over to the sink.

"I wasn't _ignoring_ her," he said, and she found his tone increasingly impatient, and unwarranted. "I was just busy whenever she called." Brennan thought about the time his phone vibrated on the beach, and he dismissed it without thought. They were certainly not busy then.

She also thought about last night when, while creeping into the kitchen for a late-night snack to calm her restless mind, she heard his phone buzz against the bedside table. She paused by the edge of the hall that lead to the other two bedrooms, and she did not hear his voice. He had ignored that call as well, and since the only people who ever called him that late were Rebecca, Parker, or Catherine, she could assume that it was Catherine he had ignored. He would not ignore Rebecca or Parker.

"Okay," was all she chose to say, though, rather than point out the inconsistencies in his explanation.

"And yes, I did talk to her, this morning," he said. "She called early, she's on her way down to Florida to assist on a research project in the Whitney Marine Bioscience Lab here in St. Augustine."

"Oh," Brennan said, feeling the muesli churn in her stomach. She suddenly wished she had not poured on so much soy milk. "So I guess you'll be going out there to meet her at some point?"

"Well, she asked if I wanted to," he said.

"And you said yes?"

"No," he finally said, sounding suddenly weary. "No, I didn't. I said I was busy, she was busy, it was better that we just didn't see each other." His tone was impatient and long-suffering, and Brennan felt herself somewhat upset by the way he spoke to her. She tried to rationalize it—surely he was tired after having gone to bed so late and woken so early—but somewhere, something in her didn't believe it.

"Better you didn't see each other while she's in Florida?" Brennan asked, despite her better judgment kicking in and telling her to just shut up and leave it.

"No," he said, now unusually engaged in the act of washing an already clean dish. "Not see each other at all." Her lips formed a small 'O' shape, and she sighed quietly, not knowing exactly what to say.

"I'm sorry to hear that," she finally said, deciding that would pass as neutral. It would be difficult to sound sympathetic when she had always found herself irrationally annoyed by the woman's existence on this planet in general, so rather than feigning sympathy, which she would undoubtedly fail at, she went for neutrality instead.

"Thanks," he said, setting the exceptionally clean plate into the drying rack and turning towards the hall. "I'm going to go shower, I guess." He disappeared down the hall and closed the bathroom door, but it was several minutes before she heard the water turn on.

While he was in the shower, Brennan's phone rang. Half expecting it to be Andrew, she almost didn't pick up, but when she saw Cam's name flash across the screen she quickly answered.

"Brennan."

"Hey, it's Cam," she said. "I was just calling to give you an update on what we've got here. Hodgins took a look at the remains for particulates, didn't find anything very helpful. A lot of sand, obviously. Some wood splinters, which could be from the weapon, but it's more likely that the bodies received that damage from being shoved under the house itself, which you said is supported by wood beams. If you can have one of the field techs take a sample of the wood from the beams underneath the house and send it to us, we can confirm whether the wood came from the beams or another source."

"I'll tell Booth," Brennan said, taking notes on the front of the manila folder lying on the coffee table in front of her. "Anything else?"

"Not really," Cam said, sighing in a way that suggested her frustration. "Have you and Booth been to check out the inside of the house yet?"

"Not yet," Brennan said. "We're trying to figure out how to get into the house without looking suspicious. We're supposed to be neighbors, not investigating a murder scene."

"Right," Cam said. "It would look strange if the neighbors saw you digging through a crime scene. I don't trust the FBI techs down there to do as thorough of a job as you two would, though. You know what to look for as far as shape and size of murder weapon, you've got an eye for that kind of thing, they don't."

"We'll try to think of something," Brennan said.

"What about a live feed?" Cam suggested. "What if you gave cameras with a live feed to the techs, sent them into the house, and looked around that way?"

"That might work," Brennan said. "I'll talk to Booth about it, he's in the shower right now."

"How are things going down there, anyway?" Cam asked, and the tone in her voice suggested that she had completely switched topics from the crime itself to something more personal.

"Fine," Brennan said vaguely, not in any mood to discuss this with Cam. "So far the neighbors seem to find us genuine. We attended a dinner party together last night." Cam snorted on the other end of the phone line.

"I bet you and the big man loved that," she said sarcastically.

"It was… interesting, from an anthropological standpoint," Brennan said. "But from a personal one, it was rather annoying. But we're getting an opportunity to feel up the neighbors, at least." Cam choked back laughter.

"Feel _out_ the neighbors, you mean," she said.

"Right," Brennan said. "Well, if that's all, then I'll be sure to get in touch if and when we're able to get into the house itself."

"Okay, great. Let us know." With that they hung up, and Brennan flung her phone to the other end of the couch, where it lodged itself between the cushion's edge and the arm.

Everything about this case was frustrating so far. They had no potential murder weapon, because they couldn't get into the house. They couldn't get into the house because they were undercover, in order to better understand the dynamics of the subculture the victims were a part of, and potentially gain useful knowledge as to the motive of the murder. But it was that very immersion into their subculture that was sabotaging their ability to adequately investigate the murder. What good was motive if they were unable to access potential evidence? Not to mention her mounting frustration with her faux husband, whose increasingly surly temperament was not helping matters any.

"Who was that?" she heard him ask, his heavy footfalls against the tile announcing his presence.

"Cam," she said. "She needs you to get the field techs to take samples of the wood beams under the Hawkins' house to send to the lab, to confirm whether the wood particulates found in the wounds were caused by the weapon or not. You should also discuss with them the possibility of using a live camera feed to allow us some kind of visual of the inside of the house." She said all of this in a very flat, uninterested way, and could not see his look of puzzlement as he stared at the back of her head.

"Oh-kay," he said slowly, picking up his own phone from the kitchen counter. "I'll get to that, then. Anything else?" He saw her shake her head. "Well, I guess I'm going to go make that call, then. Are you going to…" He started asking a question, but then realized he had no idea what he was going to ask her.

"I'm going to go think," was all she said, picking up her phone as she rose from the couch and heading back into her room without another word. The door shut, and Booth shook his head. _What had gotten into her?_

Brennan flopped down on the king-sized bed, feeling small and sunken into the middle of it. The whirring fan overhead was still easily drowned out by the rolling thunder outside. The rain was seemingly endless. It felt like the very beach itself was going to erode away, washed into the ocean, until the house itself collapsed and drifted out to sea. At this point, she would not mind that at all.

She picked up her phone and dialed a now familiar number. It rang twice, and then he answered.

"Temperance," he said, his voice bright. "I was wondering when I would hear from you. How have you been?"

"Fine," she said. "Andrew, we… we should talk."


	6. Walls of the Deepest Blue

**A/N:** Look at that, I didn't wait a month this time. This chapter is more case-heavy than the preceeding ones, but we get back to other things in the following chapter, which is written in my head but not on paper as of yet. Also, someone is coming back in the next chapter who you have not seen in a very long time, and who many, many reviewers wanted to have addressed again. Any guesses? :)

As a side note, I have realized that if any police officer seized my computer and went through my search history, they would probably think I was guilty of some heinous crime. Search topics such as, "factors affecting decay rate", "bugs that eat human flesh", "how to find traces of blood", "weapons least likely to be used in a murder", etc. do not look good on my part. Thank goodness I am not guilty of any crime, except occasionally speeding.

Anyway, enjoy the chapter and let me know what you think!

* * *

_The flames and smoke climbed out of every window_  
_ And disappeared with everything that you held dear_  
_ And you shed not a single tear for the things that you didn't need_  
_ 'Cause you knew you were finally free..._

_- Your Heart is an Empty Room, Death Cab for Cutie_

* * *

"Can you see me now?"

"No," Booth said.

"How about now?"

"No," Brennan echoed.

"Now?"

"How about I tell you when I can see you, huh?" Booth said irritatedly to the disembodied voice. They heard nothing for a while, except for a few bangs and sighs, and then the black screen suddenly came to life. It was fuzzy at first, but quickly came into sharp relief. It was the inside of a bedroom, not unlike the one they were sitting in now, staring at the live feed from inside the victims' house.

"We see you," Booth and Brennan chorused simultaneously. A young, thin face topped off with a mop of disheveled brown hair came into view and smiled.

"Hi," the FBI tech said. "I'm Jake, and I'll be your tour guide for the day." Brennan smirked; Booth did not. He found young techs to be somewhat annoying, and he was already annoyed after the morning's argument. He and Brennan had not said anything to one another that was not case-related since then, and it was now mid-afternoon.

"Anyway, I can't see you," he continued. "I can only hear you through the mic. I know you can't see it, but this thing is set up like a camcorder, rigged with an earpiece. I can hear you, you can hear me, and you can see everything I'm taping, I just can't see you."

"Got it," Booth said. "Where are you now?"

"We are in the guest bedroom," Jake said, turning the camera away from himself and out towards the room. "It looks pretty untouched here, but we'll do a sweep before we move on to the main house." Booth and Brennan watched as the tech slowly panned the camera around the room with steady hands, for which Brennan was grateful. Watching shaky-handed footage made her nauseous, and she already had a knot in her gut after her argument with Booth and the following phone conversation with Andrew.

"Looks clean to me," Booth said. "Let's go to the living room." The tech walked them into the spacious living area, and began the same sort of pan around the room. He zoomed in on the book case, the entertainment center, anything that might hold a clue to what happened the night the Hawkins's were killed.

"What did you say the weapon was, again?" Jake asked.

"I didn't," Brennan said. "We don't know what it is, just that it was something blunt and heavy. Possibly wooden, but not definitely. Our expert on particulates hasn't received the wood samples from under the deck yet."

"Right," Jake said. "Okay, well, I'll keep my eyes peeled. Of course, something blunt and wooden could be just about any piece of furniture here, or the table top, or the kitchen counters… there's a lot of wood in here."

"It's got to be something heavy, but light enough to be lifted and swung," Brennan elaborated. "Judging by the position of the injury on the male victim's cranium, it's not feasible that his head was smashed against a countertop."

Booth frowned at her unflinching description of a possible murder scenario. Rationally he knew that she was viewing this from a scientific angle, not a personal one, but he could never think of a victim as just a victim. Any time she said something to that effect, he always saw it play out in his head, and so the lack of inflection in her tone bothered him. More so than usual today.

"One of his injuries was too far up," she continued. "It was near the… well, you can't see where I'm pointing and most certainly don't know what I'm talking about. Anyway, he had to have been hit by something swung at him, probably by someone at least his height or slightly taller. The female victim, however, had fractures mostly around the base of her skull, and the side. Someone could have swung at her from beneath her height, or she could have been hit against something."

"So we're looking for anything, really," the tech summed up.

"Yes," Brennan conceded with a sigh. "Nearly anything."

"Good to know," he said. "Hey, look at this." He zoomed in on a unit of leaning shelves on the wall next to the entertainment center.

"What am I looking at?" Booth asked, but as the camera continued to zoom he saw what the tech had noticed, with an admittedly keen eye.

"No dust," Brennan said, referring to the three spots on the shelf that were free of dust, unlike the rest of the shelf around it.

"Nope, no dust," Jake said. "Looks like something was taken."

"Wonder what," Booth mused aloud.

"Huh, it looks like the rest of the shelf was cleaned off," the tech said. "No dust." Sure enough, the rest of the wood was wiped clean, save for the uppermost shelf.

"Weird," Booth said. "Maybe they noticed the dust on the bottom shelves and wiped it off, cover their tracks, you know?" Sure enough, there were no fingerprints on any part of the shelf after it was covered in fine black print powder.

They continued to scan the living room but found nothing else of interest. They moved into the master bedroom, then the office, both of which were also unrevealing. It wasn't until Jake reached the kitchen that they found anything else worthwhile.

"Could you please look in the trash can?" Brennan asked after he had panned the kitchen area. The tech swung around to the can and pushed back the lid.

"Nothing," the tech said aloud, voicing what they could all see. There was an empty bag in the trashcan, nothing interesting.

"Take the bag out, please," she asked. The tech did as he was told, and they saw nothing but the pristine inside of the can. She sighed, but Booth frowned.

"That's weird," Booth said.

"What is?" she asked.

"The trashcan," he said. "It's too clean."

"Well Booth, they use liners," she pointed out. He shook his head.

"Have you looked at the inside of your trash can lately?" he asked. "Even with liners, the insides get dirty. The bag slips, something spills out, eventually it gets gross inside. Most people don't think to clean it because you almost never see the inside of the can, there's always a bag in it."

"Maybe they were fastidious," she said.

"If they were, then how come there was so much dust on the top shelf? If they were anal enough to clean the inside of their trashcan, they should have dusted more often. Jake, will you go outside and look in the garbage can? I want to see what's in the bags."

The tech stepped out through the back, stomped down the stairs (during which Brennan had to look away; the bobbling was too much) and made his way around the side of the house where he found the trashcans. He pushed back the lid, and they hit paydirt.

Even from the outside, it was obvious that the bag on top was splashed with blood. The red showed clearly through the thin white liner, and Booth smiled in a self-satisfied way.

"Knew it," he said. "Pull it out and open it up, will ya?" The inside of the bag was filled with broken glass, blood, and what appeared to be a roll's worth of used paper towels.

"Looks like they didn't do such a good job cleaning up after themselves," Brennan observed, duly impressed by Booth's intuition. "Perhaps… Jake, could you go back into the living room and perform a phenolphthalein test on the shelves and the floor around them?" Within minutes the other techs had opened the test kit and were swabbing the shelves. They ran a dry swab over one of the clean shelves, then added alcohol, phenolphthalein, and hydrogen peroxide. No sooner had the hydrogen peroxide touched the sample than it turned bright pink—positive for blood.

"Someone was killed there," she said definitively. "The shelves, they've all been cleaned, they were probably covered in blood. All the broken glass probably came from the things that fell off the topmost shelf onto the tile. Take a sample of the wood, maybe it will match the splinters found on the bodies."

"Nice catch, Bones," Booth said, with a genuine civility that had not permeated their conversation yet.

"Thanks," she said. "And you, on the garbage cans." He smiled, and she could not help but do the same, whether she wanted to or not. He was infectious in the best way.

The techs closed the curtains and turned out the lights, making the room sufficiently dark enough to spray a fine mist of Luminol over the scene. As would be expected, the entire shelving unit glowed bright blue, as did a large swath of floor around it, part of the wall, and the side of the entertainment center. Even Booth and Brennan, who had seen so many crime scenes, were somewhat stunned by the sheer amount of blood staining.

"That is… definitely a murder scene," she concluded. "Take photographs and send everything you can to the lab. Also, look for a drag path. The bodies weren't wrapped, meaning they had to have been dragged from where they were killed to the back of the house." The techs continued to spray down the house, and found a path of neon blue that started in the living room and continued around the corner into the kitchen.

"It's too bright to see the Luminol outside," the tech said. "But I think it's safe to assume that after they dragged the body out these back doors—" He indicated towards the sliding glass door that opened out from the kitchen to the deck. "—They probably dropped the body over the edge, or dragged it down the stairs."

"Probably," Brennan agreed.

"So where was the other one killed?" Booth asked aloud. "We found one murder scene, but we have two bodies." Brennan mused for a moment.

"You should go back after dark," she said to the tech. "Luminol isn't visible in direct sunlight, but you'll be able to see it once the sun goes down. We should verify whether the body was dumped or dragged, and also look for a second murder site."

"You think someone was killed out on the deck, with an open view to the beach? Any of the neighbors could've seen it," Booth said. She shrugged.

"It's possible," she said. "People have been killed in more obvious places."

"That's true," he agreed. "Okay, I want you guys to spray down the rest of the house, look for any more signs of blood." The techs did as commanded, and thirty minutes later they had found nothing. Booth harrumphed.

"Maybe you're right," he said. "Maybe it was out on the deck."

"We'll know tonight," she said.

"Right," Booth said.

"Well, if that's all for now, then I'm going to cut the feed," Jake said. "We'll clean up inside, then come back after dark and check out the outside of the house."

"Great, thanks Jake," Booth said, feeling much more genial towards the tech now that they had some evidence to go on and Brennan's voice was no longer laced with steely animosity whenever she spoke to him.

The feed cut out, and Booth and Brennan were left amongst themselves again. They were silent for a few minutes, each of them ruminating on everything they had just learned. It was she who spoke first.

"I think Sheryl was killed there," Brennan said.

"How come?" he asked.

"The position of the fractures on her skull," she explained. "Bill had a fracture high on his parietal, near the coronal suture. That wouldn't have been caused by being pushed back against or thrown into a shelving unit like that one, not unless it was at a very bizarre angle. He would have had to be bent over and rammed headfirst into it, turned slightly sideways. That seems unlikely to me."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Bill wasn't a small guy either, I couldn't see someone picking him up and throwing him like that."

"Right," she said. "But Sheryl had one clean blow, to the back of her head. She could have been slammed against one of the shelves and that would have been enough."

"It's so violent," Booth said. "I wonder what they did to piss someone off that much." Brennan shrugged.

"There may have been no motive," she said. "They could've just been terribly unlucky. Occasionally people are killed for no reason, they just happen to be singled out by a psychopathic serial killer with no real reasoning behind the act."

"Yeah, it happens, but barely ever," Booth argued. "It's way more likely that someone with a motive killed them. Plus, none of the locks or windows were forced. It was someone who was either let in or let themselves in, through an unlocked door or with a key."

"That's true," she conceded. "I suppose the odds of it being a psychopath are very narrow."

"No, it was definitely a psycho," Booth said. "Anyone who can just kill someone else like that, for whatever reason, is pretty psycho in my book." She nodded, then after thinking for a moment, shrugged.

"Not necessarily," she said. "You would kill someone if they hurt Parker."

"Yeah, but that's my son," he said. "It's a life for a life."

"I didn't think that was the Christian attitude," she said. "I thought the Ten Commandments said, 'Thou shall not kill.'"

"It also said, 'An eye for an eye,'" Booth pointed out.

"And Jesus Christ himself is quoted as saying that you should turn the other cheek to your enemies, and not seek revenge," she countered. Booth had no good argument against this, and frowned.

"How do you know that anyway?" he asked.

"I read, Booth," she said. "And I'm an anthropologist. Just because I don't give credit to your religious beliefs doesn't mean I don't find them intriguing, as a facet of human culture. I like to educate myself on a variety of topics, even those that I don't find particularly applicable to reality."

"Well, anyway," Booth said. "I think God would forgive me for killing the sonofabitch who hurt my son. If not, then I would just have to live with that."

"I suppose," she said. "My only point is that perhaps some murders are motivated by something more rational than psychoticism. Some people have what they believe to be very sound motives for murder, like seeking revenge for a wrongful death."

"I guess," Booth said. "Still, I can't imagine what a bunch of environmentalists could have done to drive someone to kill them."

"Well, who knows what people do behind closed doors," Brennan pointed out, looking through the window out onto the neighborhood block. "We don't really know anything about the Hawkins's, just like anyone else here. Any one of them could be a murderer." The thought sent a chill up Booth's spine. No amount of years working on murders could shake that core fear one has of being in the presence of a killer. He still felt his stomach flop whenever he approached someone he knew was guilty, though he did not show it.

"Yeah," he agreed, caught up in thought. Before either of them could speak again, the house phone rang. Brennan hopped up lightly to answer it in the kitchen. Booth listened to her end of the conversation, which was hesitant. He walked out into the kitchen just as she hung up.

"Who was that?" he asked, but the distasteful look on her face made it clear before she even opened her mouth to answer.

"Lenore Abbott," she said. "Apparently she still has the number from when the older couple lived here. She said they have leftovers from the party that she wants us to have, and a housewarming gift. She wants us to come over and get them." The way she spoke made it sound as if she were detailing some rather painful task ahead, and Booth smirked.

"Oh, what, you don't want to go chat with your BFF Lenore?" he asked. She frowned.

"My what?" she asked. He sighed.

"Nothing," he said.

"And besides, not I, _we_," she said. "She said to be sure to bring you along. Apparently they have company and she wants to show you off."

"She said that?" Booth asked, mildly horrified. Brennan was the one smirking now.

"No, but she implied it," she said, slipping her shoes on at the door and opening it. "She's quite sexually attracted to you. She's a, what do you call it, a panther?"

"Cougar," he corrected, locking the door behind them. He shielded his eyes against the blinding Florida sun as he turned around again. "She's a cougar."

"Right," she said. "Well, prepare yourself, because we're due at the cougar's den."


	7. The One Small Point

**A/N:** Okay, so apparently just because I have a chapter written in my head doesn't mean it's going to get written on paper any sooner. I decided to split this in two, because it was getting long and I didn't want to inundate you with too much at once. Also, cookies to whoever can figure out who the character in this chapter is that you've seen before (it may or may not be the one Brennan recognizes) and where you've seen them from!

* * *

_Forgotten but not gone _  
_You drink it off your mind _  
_You talk about the world _  
_Like it's someplace that you've been _

_You see you'd love to run home _  
_But you know you ain't got one _  
_'Cause you're livin' in a world _  
_That you're best forgotten 'round here..._

_- Broadway, The Goo Goo Dolls_

* * *

"Sam! Christine! Oh, it's so _good_ to see you again, do come in!" Brennan felt Lenore's Barbie doll pink claws sink into her upper arm as she pulled her in through the front door, putting her aside as she grabbed Booth firmly by both shoulders and planted a kiss on his cheek. Brennan was torn between a bizarre, displaced anger and amusement as she saw Booth's face contort, one hand hesitantly patting her on the back.

"It's uh, nice to see you too Lenore," he managed. "Dinner was great last night."

"Oh, that?" she said as if it was nothing, leading them into the living area. "Well I'm glad y'all enjoyed it. I want you to meet some of Hank's business associates, Joe and Sarah." Hank and Jim both rose from the couch as Lenore lead them into the room. Joe was about Booth's age, mid thirties, with a youthful spring in his step as he moved forward to shake Booth's hand.

"Joe French, nice to meet you," he said energetically. He reminded Booth of the overly-eager FBI agents he saw at the office on occasion, green from Quantico, raring to go.

"Se.. uh, Sam Parker," Booth said, almost losing himself in his thoughts for a moment. "This is my wife, Christine."

"Hi Christine," Joe greeted. The woman sitting on the couch finally looked up, uninterested.

"Aren't you going to introduce me?" she asked impatiently. Joe laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Of course, sweetheart," he said. "I was getting there." He flashed Booth a quick, almost unseen eye-roll. "Sam, Christine, this is my wife Sarah."

"Sarah Taylor-French," she introduced, as if her hyphenated last name mattered at all. Booth took her hand politely, and Brennan could only nod. She had known the face looked familiar as soon as she saw her—the upward turn to the nose, the angular jaw that came into a point at the chin, and the barely noticeable scar above her upper lip. It was the maiden name, however, that sealed the deal.

"It's nice to meet you, Mrs. French," Booth said, and his mild disdain did not escape Brennan, though it may have everyone else. She knew the way he felt when he walked into his house, because she felt it too; the sense of making appearances, the thin veneer of falsity that covered everything. It was like sitting on plastic-covered couches—even though everything looked pristine and untouched, it just didn't feel right.

"Sam and Christine work from home! Isn't that wonderful?" Lenore said, almost as if her social awkwardness radar had begun to beep. They immediately launched into a discussion about the benefits of not having to drive I-95 to work every day, and Booth and Brennan mostly smiled and nodded throughout the conversation. Eventually Booth found himself holding a gin and tonic he did not ask for, and Brennan had been roped into the kitchen.

"He's so lovely, isn't he?" Lenore asked Brennan as she pulled a bottle of Pinot Noir off the top shelf of the wine rack.

"Joe?" Brennan asked, unsure. Lenore tittered and uncorked the bottle with more force than she appeared capable of.

"No, silly," Lenore said through gritted teeth until the cork popped, smiling in a self-satisfied way. "Your husband, Sam."

"Oh, right," Brennan said. "Yes, I suppose he is."

"You _suppose_? Oh, honey—" Brennan ground her teeth; she hated, possibly more than anything, to be referred to as 'honey', or any derivative thereof. "—If you only suppose he's lovely, I wonder what your idea of lovely is!"

"Well, his facial symmetry is pleasi… I mean, I like his face," Brennan corrected awkwardly, remembering Booth's instructions to try to speak as plainly as possible so as not to set off suspicions. Lenore gave her a funny look, but seemed to disregard it, perhaps out of social nicety more than anything.

"I'm sure his face isn't the only 'pleasing' part of him," Lenore said suggestively. Brennan stared at her plain-faced for a moment before her implication struck her.

"Oh, you mean his penis?" she asked. Lenore gave an awkward laugh, trying to choke it back, touching a hand gently to her mouth.

"You have quite a way with words, don't you?" was all Lenore said in response, taking a collection of wine glasses in one hand and the bottle in the other and exiting into the living area where the rest of her guests were.

By the end of the next hour, Booth and Brennan were about as socially exhausted as two people could be. They had smiled, laughed, gestured, and nodded at all the appropriate times and places, as if taking part in a complex choreography centered around perfection. Booth finally asked Brennan what time her roast had to be out of the oven, and though she was confused at first, after a second she realized that this was his socially acceptable way of devising an out for them. Lenore sent them off with a frown and a bottle of finely aged wine, and Booth sighed in relief when they reached the end of the driveway.

"Thank God," he said. "If I had to stay there another minute I was going to scream."

"I've never understood the art of making face," Brennan said, shaking her head.

"Well of course you haven't," Booth commented with a half-smile.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked.

"You're too honest," he said. "The word 'blunt' comes to mind. People like you don't 'make face' very well with people like them." He jerked his head back towards the house, which was growing dimmer as the sun fell on the opposite horizon.

"I didn't think lying had anything to do with it," she said. He shrugged.

"It's not really _lying_, it's just not being honest. They don't have to lie to be dishonest about who they are, you know? Like, nobody is that happy and polite all the time. Sometimes you just want to tell someone to shut up, you know? Stop talking non-stop about the interstate, for crying out loud. Who cares about the freaking interstate that much? Nobody, that's who." Brennan laughed.

"They certainly are overly concerned about their commute to and from work," she said.

"That's the thing though, they're not," he said. "That's the kind of thing people like that talk about when they don't know what else to say, and they can't just start talking about normal people stuff like football or their shitty boss, because they _are_ the shitty boss."

"I see," Brennan said.

"I know it sounds crazy, but I'd rather be around a bunch of socially retarded squints than people like the Abbotts. At least the squints are always honest. They don't make conversation about their drive to work just because they run out of things to say."

"I suppose that's a compliment?" she said as they walked towards their own front door, finally. He grinned.

"You could take it as one, I guess," he said. He noticed a sticky note on the front of the door—in messy half-print, half-cursive writing was written, _"Dinner at 8, more or less. Bring something sweet."_ Lori's name was penned underneath it, and a phone number. Booth smiled.

"Or hippie environmentalists," he said, walking through the front door.

"What?" she asked.

"I'd rather hang out with squints, or hippie environmentalists. They seem like a decent bunch too."

"I take it you mean the Wilders?" she asked. Booth opened the freezer and pulled out the unopened gallon of Neapolitan ice cream he'd gone out to buy last night after his fight with Brennan, having been in the mood for some comfort food but never actually opening it.

"Yep," he said. "Dinner's in twenty, we're doing dessert." He handed her the note and she nodded.

"I imagine this will be a much better night than last night," she said. He hoped so, in more ways than one. He couldn't handle another night of fighting like the one previous. Things seemed normal between them right now, and that was all he could ask for given the circumstances.

Walking through the front door of the Wilders' house was like walking into Chuck E Cheese's. Kids filled the living room, and between their loud voices and the sound of Mario on the Wii broadcast over the surround sound, there was definitely no room for small talk. In fact, one had to nearly yell just to be heard, and it was Lori who finally poked her head out from the kitchen and hollered to them, waving them in.

"Sorry about the… insanity," she said, for lack of a better word. "We have the kids in the neighborhood over once a week for pizza and a movie. It's kind of a thing, you know? We'll eat out on the back deck; we can talk at an adult volume out there. You guys got here just in time." Booth stashed the ice cream into the freezer and offered a hand to Lori, who promptly gave him a casserole dish filled with what looked and smelled like lasagna to carry. Dave was already outside setting the table with Harmony, who had a supremely annoyed look on her face.

"Okay, I put down the napkins and the forks, can I go now?" she asked. "It was my turn like, a year ago!"

"Yes, you're free," Dave said, patting her red-brown curls for the split second before she dashed back into the house, giving Booth and Brennan a quick 'hi!' as she passed.

"Cute kid," Booth said, setting the lasagna on the middle of the patio table.

"Thanks," Dave said with a chuckle, taking his seat. "She's a real firecracker when she wants to be. Must be the hair, I guess. How have you two been?"

"Alright," Booth said, pulling out Brennan and Lori's chairs in an act of chivalry before taking his own seat. "We were just over at Hank and Lenore's…"

"Oh, so you've been better," Lori quipped, and Brennan snorted.

"You could say that," she said.

"We spend as little time with the Abbotts as is humanly possible, being their neighbors," Lori said. "We do block parties, neighborhood association meetings, things like that, but if we're out getting our mail we usually ignore each other. For the sake of not being ugly, I'll just say that she's something else."

"That's a good description," Booth said, and Dave grinned.

"I bet she's on you like a dog on a meat wagon," he said. Booth looked up, alarmed, and Dave and Lori both laughed.

"She's the neighborhood cougar," Dave explained. "I know you've noticed by now; if you haven't, you're totally blind."

"No, I noticed," Booth admitted. "I was just hoping no one else had."

"That's just how she is," Dave said with a wave. "She had sex with her landscaper, her plumber, her roof inspector… there's even rumor she did it with the maid…"

"David, please!" Lori finally admonished, though not without a wry grin. "That's not polite table conversation, you know," she added sarcastically.

"I've had more than enough of polite for a day," Booth said, taking a drink of his beer. This is what he liked—people who could eat lasagna on the deck with a cold beer. No fancy wine glasses, no three-course meals, just honest food and a bottle of Yuengling.

"Did Hank brag about how he's destroying the ecosystem?" Dave asked.

"Dave, good God, leave it alone," Lori said with an unveiled tone of annoyance. "Can't we just have one meal without talking about the Yankee Lake project?"

"No, Lori, we can't," Dave said. "They're having the hearing about it in two weeks, and without Bill and Sheryl everyone's losing hope. They were the real spearheaders, they were the ones getting everyone rallied together."

"What hearing?" Brennan asked, genuinely interested.

"They're having a hearing on the legality of the Yankee Lake project," Dave explained. "The Water Management District approved the project in 2008 even though it clearly violates their own standards, the ones they set themselves. They're breaking their own laws, just because Seminole County pushed the project through with their own dollar. They didn't even have any cosponsors for the project; the only supporter is Seminole County because they're the only ones who are going to benefit. Everyone else gets screwed.

"So the group we're in, the SJEPA—the St. Johns Environmental Protection Alliance—we took it to the courts. They admitted that we have a case, and now it's going to trial. If we win, then the original Yankee Lake ruling gets thrown out, and the project stops, for good."

"This is the pipes being dug to funnel water out of the river down into South Florida, right?" Booth asked over his beer, and Dave nodded.

"Right," he said. "They're saying it's only about five and a half million gallons of water a day. But that alone is enough to potentially damage the estuaries on the coast, and increase the algae blooms in the river. And in reality, they'll probably draw closer to fifty million gallons. And you know what for? To water their lawns. I'm not kidding, the first phase of the project only includes water use for irrigation."

"That seems… wrong," Brennan said. He nodded vehemently.

"See, Lori? She doesn't even know what's going on and she knows it's wrong! These people _get _it." Lori just nodded.

"Whatever you say, honey," she said. "But can we talk about something that isn't the river for a while? I'm with the cause as much as you are, but this topic is getting stale."

"Fine," Dave said. "Whatever you want."

"Thank you," she said. "So Sam, Christine, where are you two from originally?" Booth paused, trying to remember the story he and Brennan had agreed on. It came to him after a moment, and he pretended to finish chewing a mouthful of food before he answered.

"We're from Chicago," he said. "We came down here on vacation and fell in love with the area. Since we didn't have any family up there and we work from home, we figured, why not?"

"Fair enough," Lori said with a smile. "My parents are originally from Chicago too. They came down here in the seventies though, just before I was born. They're the ones we inherited this house from."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Booth said. "That your parents died, I mean."

"Thanks," she said, taking a swig of beer. "Dad had a heart attack, and mom was in a car accident two weeks later. She probably shouldn't have been driving, but what can you do now? Anyway, they left me the house because they hate my brother and sister-in-law… mostly my sister-in-law. I guess mom thought the best revenge against Susan would be to give me the house."

"Your mom sounds like she was a hoot," Booth said, and Lori smiled.

"She was something," she agreed. "Anyway, the house itself is great, and most of the neighbors are too. It's just a shame we had to inherit Hank and Lenore by default." Booth and Brennan both laughed, as did Dave, his former tension having washed away like the tide.

"Your parents didn't like them much either," he recalled. "They were even rich and they still didn't like them."

"No, they didn't," Lori said. "Mom had a thing about fake people; that's why she didn't like Susan, she was always so fake around mom. She thought being all polite and perfect would make mom like her more, but it was the opposite—it made mom hate her. I guess honesty really is the best policy, huh?" Booth burned under the words, finding it painfully ironic that in this moment they were living a lie to these people whose company they so enjoyed.

"Right," he said. "So who all's kids are those?" he asked, changing the subject.

"Well, you know Darwin and Harmony," Lori said. "And I think I remember you meeting the tall girl with glasses, Olivia, at the party last night. The boy who looks a little like her playing Wii with Darwin is her brother Aiden, he's about Darwin's age, ten. The other boy is R.J., Ramón Jr., he's 14. He's a great kid; he watches the house for us when we're out of town. The girl talking to Liv is his sister, Maria. She's a little older than Darwin, 11. And the one blowing bubbles is Cecilia, but they call her Secia for short."

"Has she got…?" Brennan began to ask, but Lori nodded before she could finish her question.

"Down syndrome, yeah," she affirmed. "She's nine, but she's more like a five year old. Sweetest kid you'll ever meet, though. And all the other kids are so good with her, it's really sweet to watch." Booth felt a pang in his chest as he watched the boys play video games—it made him miss Parker even more. Only seeing him every other weekend was bad enough, but since they were out of state he was setting himself up to not be able to see the boy for at least three weeks, maybe a month. It was agonizing.

"You should've seen Secia at the Christmas party at Lenore's," Lori said with a smirk. "She accidentally spilled punch all over Lenore's lap, and Lenore couldn't get mad because hello, the kid has Down syndrome, you can't yell at a kid with Down syndrome. Not that she'd yell anyway, but you know, she really couldn't get mad this way. So she had to just stand there and smile and pat Secia on the head while the girl tried to wipe her dress with a napkin. I thought I was going to die, it was so funny. Serves her right, you know?"

"Right," Booth said, only half-listening to Lori's story. He heard something vague down the street that had caught his bat-like auditory attention.

Finally he realized it was a woman, and she was screaming.

* * *

**PS:** As I have told you before, the Yankee Lake project is a real thing happening in Florida. While the SJEPA is not real, there is a real group called The Riverkeepers who are doing strikingly similar work. The hearing Dave talked about in the story is real, as are the reasons for it. It happened on July 6th, and there has yet to be news on the ruling.

So anyway, that is that. Leave a review and let me know what you think! :)


	8. We Look Pretty Normal

**A/N:** You know how I am with cliffhangers... writing them makes me want to write the next chapter even faster. Maybe that means I should write them more often? Anyway, regardless, here's the latest installation of this fic. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

* * *

_It ain't easy growin' up in World War III_  
_Never knowin' what love could be_  
_You see, I don't want love to destroy me_  
_Like it has done my family..._

_- Family Portrait, P!nk_

* * *

Booth jumped up from his chair, prompting confusion from everyone else at the table.

"Do you hear that?" he asked, but didn't wait for a response before he went through the house, tearing through the living room and out the front door, little Secia's bubbles swirling in the air around him. The children didn't seem to notice him, except for Liv, who looked up anxiously. Dave followed him through the house, and Brennan gave Lori a puzzled look, which she mirrored.

Booth jogged to the end of the slanted driveway and looked out on the street. He finally saw the source of the noise—a man was pulling a woman into the door of one of the houses down the street, and she was fighting him with all she had, screaming at the top of her lungs. Booth's easy jog turned into a full sprint, and he ignored Dave's voice behind him.

"Sam! Hey, Sam, wait!" Dave was short and lean, and apparently built for speed, as he caught up to Booth in a few easy seconds without being so much as winded. He pulled on Booth's arm enough to slow him down, a difficult task for a man a good six inches shorter than him, all the while beseeching him. "Sam, stop, don't bother, man. Stop."

"Don't you… look, she…!" Booth tried to get Dave to see reason, pointing to the woman who was at this point on her knees in the doorway, clawing at something on the ground, wailing. Dave would not look directly at her, but acknowledged the scene with a tilt of the head.

"Yeah, I know," he said. "Seriously, come back in the house. Just leave it alone."

"What?" was all he could say, incredulous.

"I'll explain in a minute," Dave said in a low voice. "But really, it's okay. He's not hurting her, she's just… I'll explain in the house." Booth pressed his lips together and let out an aggravated grunt, then let Dave give him a brotherly good-sport pat on the shoulder and turn him back towards the house. Booth felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle with every shriek the woman let out—he heard his mother in every one.

When they returned to the house Liv stood nervously in the doorway, brushing her bangs compulsively out of her face. She'd push them, they'd fall, she'd push them again, over and over. Lori had her hand protectively on the girl's shoulder, looking troubled, and Brennan stood inconspicuously behind them, just as confused as he was.

"It's mom, isn't it?" Liv asked. Dave sighed.

"Yes," he said simply. "I'm not gonna lie to you, you're 13. Yes, it was your mom." The girl's face fell, but she did not look shocked.

"Oh," was all she said. Lori hugged her instinctively.

"Do you want me to get you an overnight bag?" she asked, but Liv shook her head.

"No, I don't need one," she said, eyes wet behind her thick-rimmed glasses although she tried to maintain a strong façade. "I think I'm going to go home and see how dad is. Just tell Aiden I didn't feel good."

"Honey…"

"Thanks Mrs. Lori, but I'm okay, really. Just don't let… just tell Aiden I was sick." With that the girl took off towards the house where the woman had just recently been subdued and brought inside, the heavy wooden door sealing off her screams from the outside world. In that moment Booth saw himself at thirteen years old, walking down the street to his Philadelphia split-level, stomach churning at the knowledge of what waited behind closed doors. He felt his blood boil for the girl, and Dave had to say 'Sam' loudly more than once before he came back to the present.

"Did any of the other kids notice?" Dave asked when they went back to the table outside, closing the sliding glass door securely behind them. Lori shook her head, leaning back wearily in her seat. She suddenly looked more exhausted than Brennan had ever imagined she could be.

"No, just Liv. You know her."

"Yeah," Dave said sadly. They both seemed so calm about the situation, and Booth was incredulous.

"What in the hell was that?" he finally asked. Dave didn't answer at first, but instead downed the last third of his beer in one fell swoop. He sighed, then spoke.

"That was Liv and Aiden's mom, Elizabeth, and their dad, John. Elizabeth has… issues. Mostly with alcohol and prescription drugs. It's gotten worse in the past few years, she didn't used to be like that."

"What happened?" Brennan asked.

"Well, we first met them when we moved in, what, right after Darwin was born? About eight, almost nine years ago," Lori said, picking up for Dave. "They'd been living here for a while before us, really nice couple. At the time they had a little girl, Liv, and a toddler, Aiden. At the time Elizabeth was the only other mom on the block, and she was a stay at home mom too, so we became good friends. She was already taking prescription drugs when I met her, but like she was supposed to, for her back. Apparently she got a stress fracture when she was pregnant with Aiden and it never healed right, puts pressure on the nerves in her back or something. Something legitimate, she had a real reason to be taking them at first."

"Right, at first," Dave said. "But then it was excuses about how she needed to take more because Aiden was getting heavier and it was putting more stress on her back to pick him up. Then it was that doing housework aggravated her back. Then it was that the bed aggravated her back. Soon she was taking five or six of those Oxycodone pills at a time, and I'm pretty damn sure her doctor didn't tell her to take that many."

"It was insidious, really," Lori said sadly. "It was so slow and progressive, none of us hardly even noticed it. We believed her—I believed her, anyway—when she said she was in pain and needed more. Elizabeth has a doctorate, a Ph.D. in American Literature or something like that. She used to teach at Flagler College before she got pregnant with Liv, she's brilliant. Or, she was brilliant. I never expected this to happen… I don't think anyone did."

"So now she just, what, gets high and drinks all day?" Booth asked, maybe more bitterly than he should have judging by the look Lori gave him.

"She's sick, Sam," she said, with a patient venom in her voice. "She's not a bad person, she has an illness. Addiction is a disease, not a character flaw."

"Right, is that what you tell those two kids of hers?" Booth asked angrily, and Brennan put her hand on top of his.

"Stop," she said, quietly but firmly. He was getting out of hand, letting his personal life interfere with his job. This was—as she had to frequently remind herself—ultimately a job they were doing. They were working, and they could not let their personal feelings interrupt that work. This was the only moment so far in which Brennan was more equipped to handle the situation than he was; concealing one's feelings was old hat for her. Pretending not to feel, that was the easy part. It was pretending to feel a certain way (or as was increasingly the case, to _not_ feel a certain way) that was the difficult part. Lori and Dave both watched hesitantly, waiting for his reaction. He took a deep breath and leaned back into his chair, rubbing his face. Brennan seemed to relax visibly as well.

"John has been trying to get her into a rehab program for the past year or two, I guess," Dave said. "She won't go, she says she doesn't have a problem. You know how it is, denial and all that. He told me the other night, we were getting some drinks after work, and he told me he's thinking about leaving her if she won't get clean."

"I didn't know that," Lori said, and Dave nodded.

"Yeah, he said, you know, it's too much for Liv and Aiden. Liv feels like she has to take care of her mom, but good God, she's only 13. And Aiden's getting to that age where he is finally figuring out what's really going on, it's just not fair for them. So he said he's thinking about doing one of those intervention things, where everyone confronts her and she either goes to rehab or she loses her family."

"It's just so sad that it's come to that," Lori said. Booth had effectively exited the conversation, Brennan could tell by the blank look behind his eyes, and she did not know how to politely excuse them both back to their house.

"Dinner was really great," Brennan finally said, standing up. "But we've got an early day tomorrow, we should be going."

"Oh, right, it is almost ten isn't it?" Lori said, though the look she gave Brennan expressed her understanding of the true reason for their departure. "Well it was great having you guys over, you should definitely come by again. Maybe next time we won't have The Electric Company in our living room." Lori gave a wry smile, which Brennan returned, taking their leave around the back of the house instead of through the living room where the children were still partying hard.

When they got back to the house Booth beelined for the bathroom and slammed the door behind him, leaving Brennan standing alone in the living room. She was at a loss—should she try to talk to him, leave him alone, break the door down? She wasn't one for breaking down doors, not sharing Booth's mentality that, _Any lock worth picking is worth kicking_, but she did not want to leave him alone if that wasn't what he wanted.

This was one of those moments when she wished specific people came with handbooks. The entire field of cultural anthropology could be summed up in exactly that: creating a handbook of humanity. How people work, why they do what they do, in what context do they react in a certain way, what is appropriate in a situation and what is inappropriate, what is expected, what is demanded, what is taboo.

An ethnography of a culture was worth its weight in gold as far as Brennan was concerned—it was a step-by-step guide to fitting in and making the correct social choices. Walking into a culture with a well-written ethnography in hand was worth more than any book of translations. Language barriers could easily be overcome—cultural barriers, on the other hand, were far more difficult to relearn. Signs were posted all over foreign countries giving multiple translations to their meaning, but there was no sign that said, "In this culture, it is inappropriate to smile at strangers who you pass by on the street" or "In this culture, it is widely accepted to stand within a foot of the face of the person with whom you are conversing."

But there were no ethnographies written for specific people, that is not the nature of an ethnography. It is a comprehensive, subjective evaluation of a culture as a whole, not of one specific person within a culture. They only encapsulate a culture in its entirety, and unfortunately do not illustrate the infinite differences between members of the same culture. There was no "Book of Booth" that she could flip through to the right chapter and page, and read under the heading, "What to do when Booth has a minor raging meltdown due to resurfacing childhood trauma."

She hesitated outside the bathroom door, and considered knocking until she heard the shower turn on. Okay, he was taking a shower; he obviously wanted to be left alone. She sat down on the couch in the living room and stared at the television on the opposite wall. It took her a few minutes to realize that there was a remote somewhere with which she could turn the TV on and actually watch it, instead of staring at her reflection in the dark surface. Not having a TV at home, things like that tended to pass right by her without much thought.

She chose not to turn on the television, though, and instead listened to the sound of the ocean outside. The constant, low hum of the Atlantic was something she had not expected to find so salient, nor so soothing. When most people talk about having a house on the beach, they think about walking out onto the hot, sunny sand, splashing in the surf, watching the sun rise and set over the gentle curve of the horizon. But very few people mention the way the ocean speaks to you at night, in these quiet moments when the TV is off and you are alone with your thoughts. Lying awake at night, the sound of the tide as it ebbs and flows washing over you as if you yourself were the sand, the curved line of the shore, drifting off into the massive expanse of black water particle by particle.

Almost nobody thinks about the way you close your eyes and can taste the salty air on your lips, smell the changes in the tide, and feel the rush of water not on you, but within you. Nobody talks about the way that by living beside the ocean, you become part of it, and it a part of you. This house is not your house—the ocean is your house. The ocean claims you, and though your footprints wash out in the new tide, the endless water leaves its mark on you the way it leaves ripples in the silt along the shore.

It was, in this thought, that she heard the bathroom door open again. His footsteps went down the hallway into the guest bedroom where he had been residing, and the door shut, though with less force than before. The way one could feel a storm rise over the curve of the earth, encroaching on the coastline, oncoming and dark as the water over which it traveled, she could feel him. His presence, like that of the ocean, was inescapable.

She rapped on the door gently with her knuckles, and heard a grunt that she could only assume meant, 'come in.' She pushed the door open gently and found him lying on his back on the bed, arms over his face, all the lights off.

"I'm sorry, if you're trying to sleep I can…"

"No, it's fine," he said without moving. "It's just a headache, is all." She took a few careful steps into the room, the light from the hallway throwing half of the room into fuzzy relief while the other half remained dark. Finally she took a seat on the end of the bed, back facing him, looking out the window at the moon hanging over the ocean.

"I'm sorry about this evening," she finally said, not knowing if her apology was appropriate but being at a loss for anything else useful to say. He sighed, and she felt it.

"It's okay," he said, in a tone that was not. "It just struck a nerve, you know?"

"I understand," she said. "Your childhood was not easy; you were abused by an alcoholic, so to watch another child in an alcoholic environment undoubtedly causes you some level of distress." He flinched at the way she plainly stated the facts—_you were abused by an alcoholic_—but he knew she meant no harm. It was the truth; it was just a hard truth to swallow, especially in such sterile terms.

"Right," he said. "I know there's nothing I can do, but I just wish…"

"You wish you could, even though you can't. That's normal, Booth. It's part of the human condition. Evolution has bred into us a certain level of empathy and altruism—we are highly emotive, we feel for others of our species, and even, in many cases, for those outside of our species. And it is in our nature, the nature of humanity as a whole, to desire to help those in need. It was evolutionarily advantageous for us to behave so."

"How is that?" he asked, sounding less edgy and almost bemused.

"It's sort of a 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' theory, really. Many biological anthropologists believe that we evolved into such socially empathetic creatures because it was advantageous to us on an individual, reproductive level. By having empathy for and extending care to those around us, usually a tight kinship group, we increased the chances of our own genes being propagated. When you are living in a clan and you help your brother, your brother may be more likely to reproduce, thus passing on genes that the both of you share.

"Altruism, even towards those outside of immediate kinship groups, is also advantageous. It creates a system of debts, of favors. You help someone else, then they are indebted to you, and they will help you in the future. The more help you get, the more likely you are to successfully reproduce. It's all advantageous from an evolutionary perspective."

"That is… so, so wrong," he said, shaking his head in the dark. She frowned though he could not see her.

"No, actually, it's a widely accepted theory as to how empathy and altruism became so prevalent in primates."

"Yeah, sure, maybe back then," he said. "But what about now? Do you care about other people because you want to 'propagate your genes'? Or do you do nice things for others just so they will owe you back in the future? There is such thing as goodness for the sake of goodness. It's called being a good person, and doing the right thing, not because you're gonna get anything out of it but because it's just the right thing to do."

"Well, biologically speaking…"

"Biologically speaking, are you sitting here talking to me, knowing I'm pissed off about what happened, because you want to propagate your genes or because you care?" His question hit her unexpectedly, and she could not adequately answer.

"I… while I do find you aesthetically pleasing, my intentions were not, at least consciously, to copulate and pass my genetic material on to a new generation, no," she finally answered awkwardly. He let out a bark-like laugh.

"So in short, you didn't come here to have sex with me, just to be a good person. See? Your theory is bunk."

"It's not 'bunk', it's an evolutionary theory. Scientists put a lot of effort into…" Whatever anthro-ramble she was about to engage in was cut off when he sat up and threw his legs over the edge of the bed so that he was sitting on the edge of it next to her. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a hug that she did not (and perhaps, out of shock, could not) resist. She leaned into his chest, snaking her arms around his midsection and pressing her cheek against his shoulder. He sighed.

"Thanks, Bones," he finally said, speaking the words quietly into her hair. "Really, thank you." She did not respond, but leaned further into him, letting all of her weight rest on his chest. She felt the slow, easy thud of his heartbeat, coming and going like the tide, and there was a hush between them as the ocean gave her command—_Be still._


	9. I Relate To You Naturally

**A/N:** Don't shoot! I know it has been over a month since my last update on this story. To be fair, I have spent most of the past month moving into a new place and trying to pass a summer class, as well as working a job that makes me want to beat myself unconscious every single minute that I'm on the clock. Not that you care, but I'm just saying, there was a legitimate reason for my lack of writing. (It didn't help that Muse has been AWOL for the past month, aside from one measly oneshot that almost nobody read.)

Anyway, all of my whining aside, here is the next chapter of the story. It's not particularly productive but it is something, and it's getting us on our way to the next, which should prove more interesting. I won't promise that my updates will be super frequent since I am starting up a new semester of classes (and still working the same horrible job), but I can promise that I will try to update at least more frequently than once a month! Enjoy this chapter, and let me know what you think. :)

* * *

_But lately I've been jaded _  
_Life got so complicated _  
_ I start thinking about it _  
_Almost forgot what it was like _  
_To know when it feels right _

_But with you _  
_I can let my hair down _  
_I can say anything crazy _  
_And know you'll catch me  
Right before I hit the ground _  
_With nothing but a t-shirt on _  
_I've never felt so beautiful _  
_Baby as I do now _  
_Now that I'm with you..._

_- With You, Jessica Simpson  
_

* * *

Brennan rolled out of her bed the next morning with a heavy sigh. Their dinner at the Wilders' house the night previous had been emotionally taxing for the both of them, Booth in particular, and she had spent much of last night consoling him as best as she could. He opened up to her in a way he had not before about his father—in greater emotional detail than she could maybe ever muster the courage to divulge to another person—and she had listened patiently, not knowing what to say.

That was, apparently, the right thing to do, because he appeared much more at ease by the time he announced that he was getting tired. Sitting on the edge of his bed together as he said that, he looked at her in a long, hesitant way. She nodded slowly, brows furrowed, then eased off of the mattress. He pressed his lips together and nodded, and also stood up. He followed her across the room to his bedroom door and closed it gently behind her when she left the room.

The urge to stay, to curl up into one another, had been undeniable and overwhelming. The offer was there, unspoken but as clear as if it had been painted on the wall in front of them. It was in his eyes, the careful way the inner corners tightened and his jaw turned slightly up, as if in offering. It was in the tone of his statement, lilting upward almost as if asking a question. Not a statement of wanting sleep, but a question, do you want sleep? Do you want to sleep _here_?

She had to decline, had to leave before the loud, longing part of her took over and said yes. She had to make a decision she would not regret in the morning. Now, though, she was not sure if she had actually made that decision or not. Part of her did regret not slipping into bed with him, the part that she usually kept as deeply buried as possible. The logical, rational part of her brain lauded her for a job well done; the buried part of her mourned an opportunity lost.

"Sleep well?" he asked when she came padding into the kitchen, hair swept up into a messy bun. He was lazed back in the love seat, ungroomed and stubbly, and it made her smile despite her best intentions. There was something about him like this that put her at ease, no matter what was running through her mind. Something natural and easy, something that made her unkempt hair and unmade face and prickly legs okay. They could be as disheveled as they wanted, they could share these early mornings, without fear of judgment. She accepted his fluffy bed head; he accepted her oversized t-shirt and bare feet.

"Yes, thank you. Did you hear from the FBI techs about the deck? They were supposed to go back last night after dark and spray Luminol on the back area."

"Yeah, actually, I did," Booth said. "They called last night while we were… while we were out," he said, glazing over the previous night's activities. She saw a mild wince cross his features as he continued. "They sprayed the back deck and it lit up like the Fourth of July, huge blood splatters all over the deck, and a trail down the back stairs. Part of the sand beneath the house still shows the traces from where the bodies were dragged under there. They said it's most definitely where someone was killed—it was way too much blood to be from gutting fish."

"I assume they took samples just to be certain?" she asked, and he nodded.

"Yep. Took samples, sent them to our lab and theirs. Whoever did it had done a pretty good job bleaching the area, but you can never get it all with the kind of bleach they sell at the store, so they got good samples. Their lab will process quicker, should be back by this morning, and our guys ought to have their hands on the samples by later this afternoon. They're pretty sure it's from Bill or Sheryl Hawkins, though."

"Excellent," she said, sitting down on the couch with a glass of orange juice. "Hodgins should have the results from the wood particulates found on the bodies by today, that will help us narrow down the murder weapon somewhat."

"Good," he said. "I feel a lot better about it now. We've got positive IDs on the vics, cause of death, the scene… now if I could just figure out a motive, that'd get us closer to finding who did it."

"And how," Brennan added. "Knowing the murder weapon would go a long way in ultimately discovering the murderer, or murderers."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Although it looks like Sheryl probably died from hitting her head on that shelf, don't you think?"

"Most likely," she said. "I imagine, judging by the location of her injuries and the amount of blood in that part of the house, that she was pushed or thrown backward onto the shelves. With enough force and at the right angle she could have easily hit the edge of the shelf with enough force to cause that kind of bleed."

"So we've got one weapon," Booth said. "The knick-knack shelf."

"Inadvertent, but yes, it could certainly be considered a weapon."

Before either of them could muse aloud any further, though, there was a knock on the door. Booth pushed himself out of his seat to answer, Brennan following close behind. Booth was surprised to find John Christiansen, the man he had seen dragging his drunken wife back into their home the night previous, standing at their front door. The flecks of grey that Booth had noticed the other night seemed even more obvious in the daylight, and his face was hung with exhaustion. He couldn't have been more than a few years older than Booth at most, but his exhaustion made him look closer to fifty than forty.

"Hi, I'm John, we met at Lenore's party the other night," John said, offering his hand. He did not smile, and neither did Booth. "I don't mean to bother you so early, but I wanted to come speak to you as soon as I could."

"Would you like to come in?" Brennan asked. He shook his head.

"That's alright, thank you though. I only want to take a minute of your time. It's Sam, isn't it?" Booth nodded. "Right. Sam, I'm not going to beat around the bush—I know you saw what happened last night."

"Yes, I did," Booth finally responded after a moment of tense silence between the two men, eyes locked. Booth's were hard, John's were just tired.

"I'm not going to lie and say it was one of my finer moments, and I am sorry that you had to see it. I'm sure Dave and Lori explained our… situation… to you. It's not exactly a secret. Not much is in this neighborhood."

"They did," he said. "I'm sorry about your wife."

"As am I," John said, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. "I didn't come for your sympathy, though, please don't think that's what I'm after. I just wanted you to know that… I don't know, just that we're trying, to make things work. Trying to get her well. I don't want you to think that I condone her addiction, or the way it affects our kids. I know it affects our kids."

"You don't have to explain anything to me, John," Booth said, his voice softening a little. Brennan put her hand on his back, and she felt him relax under her touch. "It's your life, your personal life. I don't want to butt into things that aren't my business."

"After what you saw, I think it is your business, at least to know a little," John said with a hurt smile. "Aiden and Liv, they're good kids. They aren't going to cause you guys any trouble. I know you hear stories, you know, about how the kids of addicts turn into deviants and end up causing problems. I just wanted you to know that my kids are good kids, they aren't going to cause you problems. My wife has problems, not my kids. Please don't judge them based on her bad choices."

"I know," Booth said, and he did. He really did. "I'm not… I know. No judgment."

"Don't say that," John said. "Don't lie, there is judgment. I know there is, from everyone. But my kids don't deserve judgment based on my wife's behavior."

"I won't judge your kids," Booth said. "You have my word on that." Booth put out his hand, and John shook it thankfully.

"I appreciate it, Sam," he said. "You're a good man. And you, Christine? Did I get it right?" She nodded. "Great. You too, Christine. You seem like a classy woman, and I appreciate your understanding, both of y'all's understanding. Thank you." John nodded and turned to leave.

"Hey," Booth said suddenly, and John turned around. "Is there a good sports bar anywhere around here? I've been dying for a game of pool." John gave a grateful smile.

"Yeah, there is," he said. "You busy tonight?"

"Tonight sounds great," he said. "How about Dave?"

"Yeah," John said. "And I'll get Ramón, I don't think you've met him yet but he's a good guy, you'll hit it off. I'll swing by around seven, you can follow me out there."

"Great," Booth said. "See you at seven." John waved and left, and Booth watched him walk part-way down the drive before shutting the door.

"What was that about?" Brennan asked after he shut the door.

"What?" Booth asked.

"That, that whole conversation," Brennan said. "I don't understand what the point of him coming over here was." Booth slouched into the couch and shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know, it's a dad thing I guess," he said. "You wouldn't understand."

"There are very few things I am incapable of understanding," she pointed out.

"Well, kids are a reflection of how they're raised, you know? Good parents make good kids, bad parents make bad kids. He probably thought after what we saw last night, that we'd think his kids were messed up because of their mom. He just wanted to protect them, to set the record straight. I'd do the same thing, make sure nobody pre-judged my kid. Those kids can't control their mom, but they can control themselves—they don't have to be like her. He just wanted to make sure we knew that. I get it. It's a parent thing."

"I see," Brennan said. "I can understand that, I suppose. And what about this game of pool? I haven't seen you play pool since…" She trailed off, both of them well aware of the last time she had seen him play pool.

"Motive, Bones," he said with a grin. "Get a bunch of guys together with beers and a good game of pool, and everyone starts talking shit. The number one piece of the puzzle we're missing here, besides the actual murderer, is the motive. If we can figure out who had a reason to want them dead, we're that much closer to finding out who actually did it."

"Oh," she said, comprehension dawning. "You believe that by inebriating the men and placing them in a comfortable social setting, they will be more likely to divulge sensitive information that might lead to the killer. Very clever, Booth. I'm impressed."

"You should be," he said playfully. She smirked.

"Well, we'll see how impressive you are after tonight."

"You wait," he said. "Between my pool game and the lab results, we'll have a real list of suspects by tomorrow morning."


	10. Who I Am and Who I Want to Be

**A/N:** Oh my gosh. I am so, so sorry that it took so long to update this fic. Life was throwing me one curveball after another and it was all I could do to keep my head above water, without having to worry about writing another chapter for this fic. Even when I sat down and _tried_ to write a chapter, nothing would happen, or I would start writing and something else would interfere.

But now life has slowed down and gotten better. The fall semester is over, and I made it out alive. I got a new, awesome job and quit my old, heinous, life-sucking job. I'm dating someone now, he's a squint in a lab that makes vaccines, and he is awesome. I think I love him, really love him, and I know that he makes me wildly happy and oddly complete in a way that I never was before. But I'm sure you don't actually care about any of those things, you just want me to keep writing (I hope you want me to keep writing, anyway). So here I am, writing, and happy. My job makes me happy, my boyfriend makes me happy, being done with the semester from hell makes me happy, the holidays make me happy. I hope you're happy, too. I hope reading this chapter makes you happy... maybe not because of the content, necessarily, but just because it's finally here.

Speaking of the content, a few notes before you dig in. For one, I did a little bit more "summarizing" in the beginning of this chapter than I normally would. I don't like writing that way, necessarily, but I felt it was necessary because it has been something like 4 months since the last time I updated this fic. If I didn't do a little summarizing, you might not remember what was going on, and I didn't want you to feel like you had to either A) go back and re-read to know what was happening, or B) be totally lost. So that's why you might read things that sound a bit like summarization.

Secondly, there is an Easter egg or two in here. If you find them, good for you. I'm not going to give hints or point them out. One is pretty obvious though, if you read anything else that I write. Or at least, I think it's obvious, I guess we'll find out just how obvious it really is. Also, there is an intentional fact error that I'm pretty sure absolutely nobody will catch. If you do, though, your reward is a request of any non-M rated oneshot that I will try my best to write. That is how confident I am that nobody is going to find this error.

Also, a non-related comment... my friend's nephew was born a few weeks ago, and his middle name is Darwin. I am glad she told me this online, that way she couldn't see how hard I was laughing. I'm done now, I promise. Enjoy this chapter, and let me know what you think!

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_Two roads split off from here_  
_And my life goes running in opposite directions_  
_Exaggerating the barrier between_  
_Who I am and who I want to be_

_I wanted to be the breath of fresh air_  
_When everything smelled so insincere_  
_But this taste still lingers in my mouth_  
_Deceit has ways of sticking around_  
_And I'm ready to disappear_  
_Vacation seems far from here..._

_- Note to Self, From First to Last_

* * *

Booth stepped out of the spacious tiled shower and onto the fluffy bathroom rug, rubbing his hair vigorously with a towel. One of the less glamorous parts of living beachfront that people rarely talked about was the film of salt and sand that covers everything, including you. The dense, humid ocean air laid down a briny-tasting cover on anything it touched, so much that even a simple walk up and down the coast left Booth aching for a hot, soapy shower.

He had twenty minutes to get ready before John Christiansen—the man who he had witnessed dragging his wife into their home kicking and screaming not twenty-four hours previous—would be at his door, ready to take him out to the local sports bar where they had agreed to have a round of drinks and a game of pool with the other neighborhood men. Booth mentally counted them out—himself, John, Dave the environmentalist, and Ramón, a man who he had not yet met but was assured he would get along with. He remembered seeing Ramón's children at Dave and Lori's house the previous night—R.J., Maria, and Secia, the little girl with Down syndrome. He thought about the child's smooth, round face and slightly slanted eyes, staring in awe at the bubbles that floated around the living room, and said a prayer of thanks for Parker's health.

He rifled through his clothes until he found the thing he was looking for. It was soft heather grey, the emblem on the front flaking from years of abuse, collar permanently stretched out _just so_. He pulled it down over his head and gave himself an approving nod in the mirror. When he had a job that needed to be done, he always called on his Led Zeppelin t-shirt. It was like a suit of armor, his battle courage. It was that one piece of clothing that everyone has—the one that makes you smarter, faster, stronger, better looking. There was no case that couldn't be solved, no killer who couldn't be brought to justice, in the Zeppelin shirt.

"How do I look?" Booth asked as he strode out into the kitchen, where Brennan was curled up on the couch with a variety of case files, flipping through each page carefully. He peered over her shoulder and looked at what she was currently staring at—a high-resolution image of damage on one of the victim's skulls, the second-best thing to having the skull itself in front of her—and she turned in her seat and looked him over.

"Very civilian," she said. "Are you leaving now to go to the bar?"

"Any minute," Booth said, playing with his gelled hair, alternating between spikes and smoothing it down. In the end he would just tousle it as he walked out the door like he always did, giving up on any semblance of style. It seemed to turn out alright most days.

"I got a phone call from Hodgins while you were in the shower," Brennan said. "It was about the wood particulates found in the wounds on the bodies."

"What'd he find out?"

"They aren't a match for the wood on the dock, neither of them," she said. "So they were almost certainly deposited during the attack itself. The splinters in Sheryl Hawkins's wounds were a match for the knick-knack shelf, the samples that the FBI techs took matched up to the splinters perfectly."

"So she was definitely killed by being pushed back onto the shelf, then," Booth said. "Good, great. That gives us the how, anyway. What about Bill?"

"No luck," she sighed. "The splinters in his remains did not match the dock, the shelf, or the edge of the counter, though that one was a stretch anyway."

"So we're still nowhere with him, then," Booth said gruffly. "Well, hopefully I'll be able to get something out of one of these guys tonight after they've had a few, maybe things will add up a little better."

"Perhaps," Brennan said. "I think he may have been hit with something swung. At first I thought he was hit by someone as tall as or taller than him, but now that I'm taking more time to look carefully at these photographs, I'm not so sure. See how this is angled slightly?" She held the picture up slightly for Booth to see, and he nodded even though he was not quite sure what he was looking at. "I think he may have been hit with something swung at him, from a level just at or slightly _below_ his height, and it turned, giving the impression that it originally came from above when, judging by these radiating fractures, I think the original blow was from slightly below."

"So it was, what, two hits?" Booth asked. She shook her head.

"No, it's one solid strike, but it appears to have been done with something that has a broad side so that it turned while making contact, creating a wider break with an indistinct angle of impact."

"Huh," he said, not sure what to make of that information.

"I'm going to have Mr. Bray and Hodgins conduct some experiments in the lab to see if they can't find a weapon that makes a similar damage pattern," she said. "They should be doing that now, actually. Maybe when you get back from your male-oriented excursion I will have some results for you."

"Don't say it like that," he said. "_Male-oriented excursion._ That just sounds wrong."

"What about it is wrong? It's an accurate description of… oh," she said, coming to an understanding. "You're worried about the potential homosexual undertones of that particular phrasing. I've never really understood why the suggestion of homosexuality is such a grave blow to the heterosexual male ego. Well, I understand it from a biosocial perspective, but personally I find it difficult to comprehend."

Before Booth could ask what the hell she was talking about, a melodious ring echoed through the cavernous tiled home. He gave a slightly relieved sigh; saved by the bell.

"Hey," he greeted good-naturedly when he opened the door and found John and Dave standing on the opposite side.

"Hey man, you ready to go?" Dave asked, and he nodded. Booth grabbed his keys off the kitchen table and gave Brennan a nod before he was out the door.

Booth followed the caravan of men in his own SUV, the government plates having been removed and replaced with the orange-bedazzled Florida plates he saw on so many of the other cars on the road. He rode with the window rolled down, arm hanging out the side, soaking up the last of the waning sunlight. He drummed on the metal door as classic rock blasted from the speakers, glad for once that he did not have to treat this car as if it were property of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. It could just be his, his to blast music in and ride with the windows rolled down in. His to treat like a real car.

His goal was clear—get the guys liquored up and talking. Somebody had to know something, whether they even knew it or not. It may not be that they had witnessed anything specifically, but Booth knew how things worked when a bunch of neighbors got together and drank. He'd seen it enough times on the front porches that dotted his childhood neighborhood in Philly; men drank until the empty beer bottles rolled around their feet, and soon enough in their loud, bawdy voices they would begin recanting stories of who did what, what son of a bitch said what to who, and _boy what I'd do to him, I tell ya_. Booth hated to admit it, and did so with almost a cringe, but men were not all that unlike women in their tendency to trash talk one another. The difference was that women did so openly and without shame; men typically required a little more social lubricant before they began bashing one another.

They were nearly to the outskirts of Jacksonville when they finally pulled into the parking lot of a small, seedy-looking bar that looked to have been essentially thrown into the middle of nowhere with absolutely no rhyme or reason as to its placement. A handful of cars were lined up in the parking lot like crooked, rusty teeth hanging out of the mouth of the beastly bar, and Booth pulled his own vehicle into line and cut off the engine before stepping out warily. With the encroaching scrub woods looming darkly on either side of the lot, and no lighting other than what came through the windows from inside the place, it was less than welcoming.

"I know, looks shady," Dave admitted as he also stepped out of his car, locking the door and shoving his keys into his pants pocket. "But it's usually a great group of people, and it's never too crowded."

"I can see why," Booth muttered under his breath as they entered the small, stale building that reeked of beer and what was faintly reminiscent of cat urine. There was a pool table shoved into the far back of the building, taking up nearly the entire far wall. A few booths were crammed along the side wall, across from the long, knotty pine bar that stretched the length of the right-hand side of the rectangular hovel. He scanned the bar and took notice of all the details he could absorb in such a brief amount of time before he was shaken out of his personal thoughts by a loud, somewhat annoyed voice.

"Hey," she said, and his head snapped towards her. She was tall, willowy, and dark-complexioned, with light blue eyes and a thin face. Her deep brunette hair was pulled back into a messy bun, and she wore a look of extremely thin patience. "I asked you a question, don't you hear?"

"I'm sorry, what?" he asked, and she sighed before repeating herself.

"I said, what do you want? Your boys here got tap, you too?"

"Uh, sure," he said, nodding vacantly. "That's fine, whatever's good." She seemed satisfied and filled him a pint of something deep and frothy, which he took thankfully. The other men had already began congregating around the pool table, and he joined them, setting his drink aside on the bartop nearby.

"Sam, this is Ramón Melendez," Dave said, introducing Booth to a tall, stocky-built Hispanic man with kind eyes traced with crow's feet and a gapped smile. "Melly, this is Sam Parker, they moved into…"

"Yeah, yeah, I seen 'em moving when I was over last, hey man," the man said with a heavy accent, offering Booth a genial handshake. "Nice to meet you."

"And you," Booth said, looking the man over and nodding. Once they were all introduced, they settled into an easy game of pool, exchanging jovial insults and slurs against each other's mothers. Booth kept his distance without being conspicuous and watched their conversation unfold in a predictable manner—sports, work, family. Not one mention of the traffic on the interstate, to which he smiled. As he expected, the topic eventually turned towards Bill and Sheryl's murder.

"It's too bad Bill isn't here," John observed somberly. The men nodded, and Booth took a sip of his beer, deciding how to best approach the topic to get the information he wanted.

"I heard he was murdered, right?" he finally asked, as if he didn't know the details of the investigation. The men nodded collectively.

"Yeah, they dunno who did it yet though," Melly said.

"I'm sure it has something to do with the Yankee Lake project," Dave said, and Booth wished he could have bet someone money that he was going to say that just so he could have collected on it. "The timing was too perfect, it had to be related."

"The whole world doesn't revolve around that project like you do, Dave," John said. "It probably had nothing to do with it."

"I dunno, it's pretty big politics, you know?" Melly said. "Lots of jobs at stake if the project goes down the tubes. Lots of people who won't have work anymore, and with this economy… I know there's some days I'd kill for a job, a real job."

"Where do you work?" Booth asked.

"Here and there," Melly said. "You know, stereotypical Mexican, I do odd carpentry jobs when I can." He laughed, not derisively but with genuine humor, allowing Booth to laugh with him, then continued. "Used to work for a big university doing electrical, but they had to cut their workforce in half when the money went, and I was part of the 'sorry Charlie' group."

"Ah," Booth said. "Sorry to hear it, man."

"It's alright, we're making it okay," Melly sad. "But just. Thank God Belinda is working, if it was just me we'd be hungry, three kids and all."

"Do you live in the neighborhood?" Booth asked, not thinking he had seen the man before. Melly let out a bark-like laugh.

"Me? Hell no," he said. "Not in that fancy-ass place. Nah, I known John from high school. Pedro Menendez, class of '83!" Melly and John both laughed, and Booth smiled. He knew he liked this guy for a reason, right off the bat.

"But really, I think it's more likely that it was just a break-in that went violent," John said. "I doubt it was planned, who would want to kill Bill and Sheryl anyway?"

"Oh, I don't know," Dave said. "How about, anyone on the Yankee Lake committee? Or any of the investors who would've lost millions of dollars if the project was shut down?" John shook his head.

"It's too out there, I don't believe it," he said. "You mark my words, eventually they're going to catch this guy, and he'll be some thug off the beach. He won't even know Bill and Sheryl, just saw a nice house and figured he'd take what he could."

"What do you think, Sam?" Dave asked, and it took Booth a second to remember that they were talking to him.

"Who, me? I dunno, I don't really do all that conjecture stuff," Booth said, barely suppressing a grin. "Besides, I wouldn't know who would want them dead, I never even knew them."

"Oh, come on, man," Dave said, taking another deep swig from his beer. They were all on their second or third mugs, large pint-sized glasses, and all feeling fine. "Play along."

"Well," Booth said slowly, thinking about how he could best propel the conversation without sounding like he knew too much. "In the news they said it was an attack, right? No guns. So I don't think it was a random person… because if it was, wouldn't they probably have used a gun? Don't most people who rob houses use guns?" He watched the faces of the other men, who chewed on his words thoughtfully—or rather, as thoughtfully as a semi-drunk man can. He decided that he had given them just enough to get their gears turning without sounding like he had thought too much about it. It was a delicate balance to strike, between sounding disinterested and sounding _too _interested.

"You're right, man," Melly said. "If it was random, I bet the dude would've used a gun or something. But they said it was like, an assault, like they got beat up real bad. That sounds kinda personal."

"But what could Bill and Sheryl ever have done to anyone to deserve that kind of beating?" John asked. "It just doesn't make sense…"

"Yankee… Lake…" Dave almost hissed, as if possessed by alcohol and a burning hatred for South Florida. "I'm telling you, it's the project! It all comes back to the lake!"

"You're drunk," John said with a dismal head shake.

"And right!" Dave countered. "You know there's nothing else Bill or Sheryl could've done to piss someone off enough to kill them, but people get crazy about money. Money is the root of… of all evil," Dave said in a slow, almost ethereal way, as if he were being given some great revelation from above. He really was drunk. But it made Booth wonder…

Their conversation quickly degenerated as their blood alcohol levels rose, and they didn't end up leaving until after many hours and cups of water. The sassy young lady bartending that night would not give them back their keys until they were able to walk along a line of tape laid down on the bar floor, recite a difficult tongue twister without error, and count back from one-hundred by three's. Booth was actually quite impressed.

Once she decided they were sober enough to be on the road, they headed out. Melly and John took off, leaving Dave and Booth in the parking lot continuing a long-winded argument about which lager had a better taste. Booth had just opened his mouth to launch into another one of the finer points of Yuengling on tap, when he saw something out of the corner of his eye that disturbed him. He took a step back behind his own car and pushed Dave back with him, leaning slightly around the edge of the vehicle to check out the scene.

"Hey, what are you—oh," Dave said, seeing what he saw. "Just leave it, man."

"What? That's illegal…" he said, pointing towards the large, heavily built man leaning out of his car window at the edge of the parking lot, talking to a young, scantily-dressed woman. The way his headlights were dimmed and his voice low, car tucked into the darkest corner, he knew well what was going on.

"It doesn't matter, just leave it alone," Dave insisted. "You don't want to get involved with something like that. It's her life, if she wants to do that, you know, whatever. Her choice."

"But look at her," Booth said, gesturing openly. "She's a baby, she barely looks sixteen, there's no way she's…"

"Dude, let it go," Dave insisted. "If you feel so bad about it, we'll call the cops and get out of here, let them handle it."

"But…" Whatever he was about to say was lost, though, as they witnessed another man jump suddenly out of the back of the idling car. He grabbed the young woman, however old she was, by around the waist and began to pull her into the back of the car. She let out a shriek, clawing at air and the open door, and that was all it took. Booth went bolting out from behind his car like a mad dog, crossing the parking lot in what seemed like only a few strides. He reached into the open door and grabbed the man around the neck with both hands, pulling him out of the vehicle and slamming him onto the hood, his grip on the young woman relinquished in fear.

"FBI," Booth growled, wrenching the man's arms behind his back. "You're under arrest for soliciting prostitution, soliciting a minor, and kidnapping, bare minimum. I'm not familiar with Florida law, but since I doubt she's a day older than sixteen, probably a lot more." The man vaguely said something about not knowing she was under eighteen, for which Booth gave him a good taste of the hood. He smiled with grim victory as the man spat a tooth, and sat him curbside while he cuffed both the man in the driver's seat—who had been intelligent enough to stay put—and the girl, who up close didn't even look old enough to have a learner's permit. It made his stomach flop, but at least now he knew nothing bad was going to happen to her tonight. Once they were secure he stepped away and flipped open his phone.

"Hi, this is Seeley Booth with the FBI, I need back-up," he said. "I've just made an arrest for a non-federal offense, I'd like some of your boys to come down here and make an arrest under their jurisdiction." Once satisfied, he hung up and sighed, turning to where he knew Dave was still standing. The man stared at him with wide eyes, tinged with anger and disbelief.

"I can explain..."

"You damn well better," Dave spat. Booth felt a sharp pang in his chest; he had come to really like this man and his family, and he hated the look he was on the receiving end of. That look of disgust, of hurt. Knowing that he hurt someone he had begun to consider a friend. It was never a good feeling, and was easily the hardest part of undercover work.

"Not now," Booth said. "Let me deal with this, then we'll go home and I'll explain it, okay? To you and Lori, I'll explain everything."


	11. The Policy of Truth

**A/N:** Well look at that, it didn't take me several months to update this time! In fact, it was even less than 2 weeks. :) I know, shocking, right? I think there are about 2-3 more chapters of this story, if I'm guesstimating correctly. I almost never do that though, so who knows how many more chapters there will actually be. The way I foresee it now, though, I think everything will be resolved within 3 chapters at most. We'll see how accurate that actually is. Anyway, enjoy this chapter and let me know what you think!

* * *

_Now you're standing there tongue-tied_  
_You better learn your lesson well_  
_Hide what you have to hide_  
_And tell what you have to tell..._

_- The Policy of Truth, Depeche Mode_

* * *

Booth's head was reeling as he sped down A1A, barely able to keep up with Dave's breakneck pace. He had blown their cover, royally. There was no way to cover that up, no possibility of explaining it away as a silly mistake… Dave knew. Dave knew, and soon Lori would know. Booth could only hope that they were as good of people as he thought them to be, that they might keep he and Brennan's true identities concealed for just a bit longer. He felt like they were so close now, they just had to close in on the motive and with that, he was sure they could find their killer.

But with no motive, and no trust among these people, they might never solve the case. He banged his hands against the steering wheel and growled in frustration—why, of all nights, did they have to go out tonight? He knew deep down that he had been in the right place at the right time and saved that girl, and for that he was glad, but his difficulty with their current case was overwhelming at the moment.

As they rolled south down the smooth coastal highway, the only sounds were those of the tires on the road, and the ocean to his left. He thought of their first day moving in, when Dave and Lori had shown up at the door with that basket full of food. Then the way they had invited them over for dinner just the next night, opening their home to them as if they were old friends. This was the hardest part of undercover work for Booth—forging connections with people, real connections, despite the false nature of his work. They were still real people, all of them, and they still formed real bonds. When those bonds had to inevitably be severed, it was difficult. Knowing that he had violated someone's basic trust, that hurt him more than those people could know. Knowing that their relationship wasn't real, it was predicated on lies, was painful.

It wasn't just his relationship with Dave and Lori that wasn't real, and he knew it. Maybe that was part of the pain, knowing that he and Brennan could no longer pretend—at least to Dave and Lori—to be a happily married couple. He could no longer place his arm easily around her waist, plant a kiss on her head, feel the way she breathed when they sat close to one another, all in the name of 'authenticity.' Their marriage needed to look and feel authentic, their relationship had to be believable, and so they wore not only rings but smiles, real smiles, and gave real hugs, and held real hands.

It was real, but it was a lie. It was such a difficult balance to keep. In his head he could delineate clearly, but in his heart… that was becoming much more difficult. Some mornings, when they sat at the counter with bed head, unshaven, pouring over their case notes, they felt real. In his heart they felt real. He had to frequently remind himself that they were not. At the end of the day, they slept in different beds, in different rooms. At the end of the day, there was no true love there. And at the end of this case, those rings would go back to the jeweler, the house would go back up for sale, and they would return to their separate, single lives.

He felt acid churn in the back of his throat, and he swallowed it back resolutely. That was enough of that. Right now he had more pressing issues to deal with, like the fact that they were coming up on their neighborhood and he still had not thought of how he was going to explain their situation to the Wilders. He parked in front of their house, and Dave kept going, pulling into his own garage. Booth heard Dave's car door slam from within the garage and he knew that he had to get over there fast and deal with the fallout as best as he could.

"Bones? Meet me at Dave and Lori's, now," he said when she picked up the phone, taking long, quick strides towards the Wilders' home.

"Why?" she asked, voice drowsy. She had been waiting up for him to see what he'd found out, but had almost reached the point of throwing in the towel and going to bed.

"Our cover's blown," Booth said through gritted teeth.

"What?" she asked sharply, suddenly wide awake.

"Our cover, it's gone, Dave knows. He's about to tell Lori, and God knows if they'll tell anyone else. I'm going over there now to do damage control, I need you there."

"Okay, I'm coming," she said, sighing in frustration as she threw a jacket on over her yoga pants and t-shirt—no time to change, to her dismay—and darted out the door.

She met him at Dave and Lori's front door, and before they could even knock the door was opened to them. It was Lori, and her face look sunken in deep disappointment.

"Sam, Christine… or whatever your names are… please come in," she said sadly, stepping back to let them in. It stabbed into Booth's gut like a knife being twisted. Dave's anger was painful, but he could tolerate it. Lori's sadness, though… it was almost unbearable. She had been so sweet to them, so kind, and with such a great personality. She was a genuine woman, and to hurt her… he hated his job, in that moment, more than he had in a long time.

"Dave, Lori, I promise I can explain," Booth said, taking the seat offered to him on the living room couch. Brennan sat next to him, and placed a hand on his knee. He tried to control his eyebrows, but he was sure they flashed upward for a brief moment anyway. Did she not realize that they didn't have to pretend anymore, not in front of these people? He decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and instead rested his hand on top of hers, giving it a gentle squeeze.

"Explain how you lied to us, you mean?" Dave said angrily. "Explain how you made up everything—_everything_—you ever told us about yourselves? Explain how you came into our home, abused our trust, made us think you were something you're not? Because I'd really love to hear that one."

"Dave, give them a chance," Lori said quietly, legs curled up beneath her in an armchair set caddy-corner to the couch. Though she was a very tall woman, she seemed so small, curled up in the chair that way with that dejected look on her face. Booth burned with shame; through all of this, she still stood up for them. She still believed in the good in them, despite their lies.

"What are your real names?" Dave asked, unable to sit from anger but instead standing in the middle of the room with his arms crossed over his chest.

"I'm Seeley Booth, a special agent with the FBI," Booth said. "This is my partner, Dr. Temperance Brennan. She's a forensic anthropologist at the Jeffersonian Institute, we work together solving homicides. We're working on Bill and Sheryl's murder, that's why we've been here for the past week."

"Where are you actually from?" he asked.

"We both live and work in D.C.," Booth said. "I'm from Pennsylvania originally."

"I did actually used to live in Illinois, just not Chicago," Brennan said. "A suburb outside the area. Back before… well, in my childhood."

"So what's with the undercover thing? Why'd you lie?" Dave asked, clearly still fuming.

"There was nothing to go on in this investigation," Booth said. "And the culture here is…"

"Difficult to penetrate, to say the least," Brennan picked up. "Wealthy subcultures tend to be elitist and self-isolating, they're wary of outsiders and often feel that they are above the laws set by society. They create their own social code, and certain white-collar crimes go unpunished because within their subculture, it's considered acceptable."

"Murder is hardly a white-collar crime, Dr. Brennan," Lori pointed out.

"Temperance," Brennan offered. "You don't have to call me Dr. Brennan, please." The two women shared a long stare, and Lori gave a slight nod.

"Alright, Temperance," she said, and Brennan smiled in a relieved sort of way.

"Thank you," she said. "And you're right, it's not. But we feared that the motive behind the murder may have been of that nature, something that the community here would not frown upon in the way that they—that you—might look at other crimes. It is not unusual for distinct, elitist subcultures such as the one you live within to close themselves up and refuse information to any outsiders…"

"Like FBI agents," Booth interjected.

"… that might help us solve the case," Brennan finished up. "Therefore it seemed logical to go undercover so that we might be able to better infiltrate the wealthy subculture and learn more about the group the Hawkins' lived within, where they fit in the group dynamic, who within the group might not have wanted them to do the things they were doing… so on and so forth. The more we could learn from an insider's perspective, the better our chances of discovering what really happened to Bill and Sheryl, and who did it."

There was a moment of silence after Brennan finished speaking, during which Dave and Lori both seemed to be digesting the information presented to them. After a minute or so, Booth spoke again.

"We never meant to hurt you," he said, with as much sincerity as he could muster. And he was sincere. "And I do apologize, really. We hated that we had to lie to you, especially you two. You guys were great to us from the start, made us feel like real friends, and it really sucked knowing that we had to lie about who we were when you guys are such good, honest people. We hated that, we really did."

"It's true," Brennan said. "Booth places an abnormally high premium on interpersonal honesty and relational transparency. He never lies unless he has to for the sake of the greater good. He's certainly never lied to me before, or anyone else that I am aware of. He is an exceptionally honest person."

"Thanks, Bones," he said, a little taken aback by her ardent vouch for his character.

"Bones?" Lori asked. They both grinned.

"I don't know, she works with bones, you know?" Booth said. "It just slipped out the first time we met and kind of stuck, I guess."

"So are you two actually married?" Dave asked, his anger seeming to dissipate. Now he just looked tired.

"Ah… no," Booth said after a moment. He felt Brennan's hand release his, and they both pulled away slowly, folding their hands in their own laps. "We're just…"

"Partners," Brennan said. "We work together, we're an excellent team, but that's… we're partners."

"Yeah," Booth muttered in agreement, nodding his head. "Just partners."

"Right," Lori said, and when Booth caught her eye he saw a sparkle in it, a smile behind her lips, that clearly said she did not believe him in the slightest.

"I need to ask you two to not reveal our real identities to anyone else in this neighborhood, please," Booth said, breaking his gaze with Lori and speaking to the room at large. "It's vital to the case that we stay under cover to the rest of the neighborhood, even if you two know. The entire case could be compromised if everyone else found out that we're not who we said we are." Dave's jaw set and he did not speak for a minute, chewing on Booth's request.

"It's for Bill and Sheryl," Brennan added emphatically. "If we can remain under cover, we stand a much better chance of finding out who killed them, and why. You can help us." Lori sighed and Dave finally nodded, and Booth felt his chest well up with excitement—this was going to work out alright after all.

"Okay," Dave finally said. "We won't tell anyone who you really are. But we want to help you. They were our best friends; we need to know what's going on."

"I promise, we'll involve you in any way we can," Booth assured. "You've known these people for years, we've only known them for a week. You know way more about them as people, what they're capable of, than we do. We could really use your help in figuring out who would want to kill Bill and Sheryl, and why."

"Whatever you need from us," Lori said. Her face had lifted, her expression more positive. "We're at y'all's disposal."

"Your help will undoubtedly be invaluable," Brennan said. "It's late now, though. Maybe we could start debriefing tomorrow morning?"

"That sounds like a good idea," Booth said. "Let's all get some sleep, then tomorrow morning we'll start getting you guys up to speed on what we know so far. Maybe you can help us fill in the blanks, show us something we've missed."

"Sounds perfect," Lori said, rising from her chair. They all walked to the front door, when Booth turned and offered his hand to Dave.

"I know it'll be hard for you guys to trust us again," Booth said. "You may never actually trust us, any more than you would trust any agent. I know whatever friendship we had is gone, but I still think you're a great guy, you've got a great family, and I respect that. I hope you'll give us another shot." Dave looked down at Booth's outstretched hand for a moment, then gave a half-smile and shook it.

"Yeah, well, you had a good reason, I guess," he admitted. "And you're trying to help figure out what happened to Bill and Sheryl, can't fault you for that. Let's say we just start over now, on honest terms, and forget it all ever happened, huh?" Booth grinned widely.

"Sounds great, man," he said, giving Dave a pat on the shoulder. "Sounds perfect."

"Tomorrow morning, then?" Lori asked, and Booth and Brennan both nodded.

"Tomorrow morning," Brennan repeated.

"Oh, speaking of tomorrow," Lori said, suddenly struck with a memory she had previously forgotten. "Lenore Abbott called, she wants to have a ladies' luncheon at noon tomorrow. She said to invite you, since she tried calling but nobody picked up the phone. _Christine_ needs to dress to impress, and be ready to babble incessantly for an hour or so." Lori and Brennan both laughed, and any unease between the Wilders and themselves seemed to have finally disappeared. Things were going to end up alright after all.

When Booth and Brennan returned home, they both flopped down on the couch, worn thin with exhaustion. It had been a long day, made even longer by such a stressful night of ass-covering. Neither of them spoke for a while, their eyes closed, leaned back against the couch cushions and just listening to the sound of the ocean outside.

"I'm going to miss this," Booth said. Brennan couldn't decide whether he meant the house, the ocean, Dave and Lori, or their false marriage. She couldn't decide which one she wanted him to mean.

"Me too," she finally replied, not knowing what she was responding to exactly but knowing that whatever he meant, she would have agreed on all counts anyway. He brought his arms up over the back of the couch, and as if by invitation she scooted in towards him, letting him drape his arm around her shoulder and pull her closer. Neither of them spoke, questioned, or otherwise made any comment about the action. They simply let it be.

Whatever happened between them tomorrow, or the next day, or when they finally left to go back to their real lives in D.C., it didn't matter now. Right now it was their gentle, synchronized breaths, one in while the other out, filling the spaces between them. Right now it was the sound of the tide coming in, the ocean humming quietly over the horizon. Right now it was just them, in this moment, and the command of the great Atlantic beyond them—_be still_. And they were.


	12. The Secret is Still My Own

**A/N:** You probably don't even remember this story anymore, it's been so long since I updated. Karma has a way of biting you in the ass. When you secretly talk about authors who don't update their fics for months at a time and you promise yourself that you'll never go more than a month, max. Then, two months later, you lay on the couch with a stomach bug and realize that you have a fic that hasn't been updated since the beginning of January, simply because you have barely had the time to breathe, much less write fanfic.

I'm there, that's me, stomach bug and all. As for my life, I still love my job, and school is still kicking my ass. Me and the awesome lab squint boyfriend broke up, but it was for the best, and we're still good friends. He is an amazing person who I would never wish ill upon, and he has voiced the same feelings for me, so we're fine. I've never been one for bitter break-ups anyway. Not that you care, you'd really just rather I stopped babbling so you can read the next chapter of this fic. I hope you want to read the next chapter, anyway. There will only be 2 more after this, I am almost positive. I have this entire conclusion planned out in my head, it just has to get onto paper (or the screen, as it were). I need to get this finished, because I'm planning on working on an actual novel once this is done. I think I can do it, if I can just make a plot last long enough to fill that many pages. _The Family in the Tree_ was pushing book-length anyway.

Alright, I'm shutting up now. Enjoy, and let me know what you think. I really will try not to make this thing last into the summer.

* * *

_'Til now, I always got by on my own_  
_I never really cared until I met you_  
_And now it chills me to the bone..._

_- Alone, Heart_

* * *

"You may find this rather grotesque," Brennan forewarned, laying the manila folder on the table between them. She and Booth sat with their chairs grouped on one side of the round dining room table, Lori and Dave Wilder on the other end. The table was empty except for a large pile of folders stacked helter-skelter near the edge, one laid down in the middle like the starting card of a deck. Lori eyeballed it hesitantly—it seemed innocuous, plain light tan with a case number written in tidy blue script on the tab.

"You don't have to look if you don't want to," Booth added quickly. "We can just… you know… summarize it."

"I want to see it," Lori said, her voice higher than usual and oddly ethereal, as if she were not in the same room or on the same plane of existence as they were. Even her eyes had a glazed over, not-quite-there look to them. "I still don't feel like they're dead. The last time I saw them, they were on their way to the grocery store. We were packing up to go visit Dave's brother and sister-in-law; they were visiting from Cincinnati for the weekend, on their way to Disney, you know? When we got home, Bill and Sheryl were gone. It's like they're still at the grocery store."

"Lori, honey…" Dave started, leaning back in his seat as if the folders themselves were remains. He clearly wanted nothing to do with them.

"I want to see it," she repeated, more firmly. "I need to." Without hesitation she picked up the folder in between them and flipped it open. Dave shut his eyes, turning his head the other way as soon as he caught glimpse of the first high-gloss shot. Lori stared unflinchingly at the mostly decomposed remains of her dear friends. Sand coated most of the remaining flesh, wet and tacky, but they were unmistakable as far as being human remains. Lori stared at the partially defleshed skeletons with an almost child-like curiosity, turning the photos slightly, crows feet forming at the corners of her dark eyes as she squinted against the glossy shine on the image from the sun rising through the window behind her.

"This is them?" she asked, and Booth and Brennan both nodded in confirmation. Her face settled as she flipped through the images—close-ups of injuries, the layout of the crime scene. Her breath caught visibly in her chest as she came upon the headshots, zooming in on what few facial features were recognizable amid all the purification.

"This is… oh God," she said, suddenly setting the folder down and turning rather white. Dave reached out and took her hand, and she pressed her lips together tightly. "They really are dead, aren't they?"

"Yes," Brennan said, firmly but not unkindly. "They are dead."

And then they waited for Lori to grieve. She did so quietly, with poise, but it was palpable in the room. The way the tears slid quietly down her cheeks, it felt like the first drops of rain in a hurricane. A static in the air thick enough to cut, rippling across Brennan's skin like waves of the incoming tide. It pulsed and amplified, coming to a head so intense that Brennan herself felt extremely uncomfortable, like she was being shocked repeatedly by a wire she could not let go of.

She could not explain why this woman's tears moved her so deeply—she had seen dozens of loved ones mourn the loss of their dearly departed, hundreds even. She had watched every one, every tear drop, every face crumble, and not said a word. Not cared. Well, maybe cared, but somewhere distant, in some expected and insincere way. In the way that you know you should care about the starving children you see in television ads on TV, children whose lives you could change for thirty cents a day, but you don't. You care, but you don't.

Slowly but surely her breathing slowed, quieted, became more metered and less hitched. Depth was restored, and the hysterical crying stopped. She blew her nose with as much dignity as a person can, wiping at her eyes with the heels of her hands.

"I'm sorry," she finally said, her voice thick but steady.

"Don't be," Booth assured firmly. "Just help us find who killed them."

The four of them spent the next several hours poring over case notes. Every minor detail was lined up—financials, relationships, political affiliation, anything that could potentially narrow down the list of suspects and point them towards a murderer. Nothing was out of place. They owned their home outright, and their cars, they had no debt aside for less than a hundred dollars on a Kohl's card. Nothing in their bank transactions over the past six months looked suspicious in any way. They had no family in jail, none in rehab, no close acquaintances who appeared to be involved in anything potentially revealing. Both Sheryl and Bill were registered Independents, and the only thing that seemed to have any clout as far as a motive for murder was…

"I'm telling you, it all comes back to the Lake," Dave insisted after several hours of combing through his friends' life. "Yankee Lake is the only thing Bill and Sheryl ever did to piss anyone off enough to want them dead."

"Environmentalists piss people off all the time," Booth pointed out. "They piss _me_ off all the time. This project can't be the only thing they've ever done that would make someone upset with them."

"But it's the most expensive project," Dave protested. "It's the one with the most at stake to lose if it fell through. Most of what Bill and Sheryl did was push legislation to propose new bills, not slash projects that were already paid for. They were into conserving what was already there, protecting it before people like the Abbotts got ahold of it. They weren't in the business of screwing up lives… it just happened that if Yankee Lake fell through, that was exactly what was gonna happen. There were millions, even billions, of dollars at stake with this thing. It's the Lake, it has to be. There's nothing else." Booth seemed to consider his point of view for a moment, then asked what was, to Brennan, a surprising question.

"Do you think Hank Abbott could've done it?" Dave's answer was swift.

"Absolutely," he said. Lori, on the other hand, rolled her eyes.

"Oh Jesus, Dave," she said. "I know you and Hank don't see eye to eye on a lot of things…"

"On anything," Dave said furiously.

"… but that doesn't mean you can go around accusing him of killing people. He's not a bad guy, just an asshole."

"Can't you see it, though?" Dave proposed. "Hank's big, he's mean when he's drunk, and he's got millions invested into this project. Last time I heard him bragging about it I think he said he would pocket something like five mil, easy. You don't think a guy like Hank would kill for that much money?"

"Honestly? No," Lori said firmly. "I don't. I don't like Hank but he's not a killer."

"I agree with Lori," Brennan said. Booth raised his eyebrows at her.

"Really?" he said, and she nodded.

"Yes," she said. "She knows the Abbotts better than we do, and she strikes me as an individual with a keen sense of judgment, especially about the baser intentions of others. I think that if Hank Abbott was capable of murder, she wouldn't be so ready to defend him without hesitation."

"That sounds pretty subjective for you," Booth said warily.

"Well," she said with a tone of admittance, "that, and also the wounds on Bill's skull couldn't have been inflicted by someone as tall as Hank Abbott, remember? We're looking for a killer less than five and a half feet tall. Hank has to be six feet, easily. Too tall to have struck Bill comfortably from that angle."

"You sure he couldn't have just, you know, swung up?" Dave asked, making a golf-like motion with his arms. Brennan shook her head.

"No," she said. "It wasn't a rounded swing like that, it was more of a chop," she said, making a motion like she was swinging a baseball bat at a line drive. "He would have had to stoop down to make that motion upward like that at Bill's skull, at such an awkward angle that I don't believe it's feasible to expect anyone taller than 168 centimeters."

"Excuse me?" Dave asked.

"Like, five and a half feet," Booth translated.

"Right," Brennan said. "I believe the killer was somewhere between five foot two and five foot six, to have inflicted the damage at that angle. Highly unlikely to be a man. But on the same token, the amount of force was quite large… most women aren't capable of such a strike. I really don't know what to make of it."

"Can you think of anyone—anyone—besides Hank Abbott who would have enough at stake in the Yankee Lake project to want Bill's life?" Booth asked. Dave seemed to consider and weigh his options, then shook his head.

"No, not really," he said. "Hank's the only guy who comes to mind right off the bat, you know? Everyone else here either wasn't involved, or they were on our side of it. And like you said, they weren't really into anything else that would've made sense to kill someone over."

"Nothing makes sense to kill someone over," Lori said bluntly. "And speaking of killing people, Lenore might kill us if we aren't on time to her luncheon. It's quarter 'til noon."

"Oh, right," Brennan said, remembering that they were supposed to be at the woman's house today to make small talk and eat small sandwiches and drink rather large glasses of wine. She wondered to herself what would possess someone to have so many lunch parties with so many rules. It was like being part of a choreographed show every time she was there. Eat this, drink that, say those words, make these motions, smile. It was enough to make anyone crazy.

"I don't understand something," Brennan said as she and Lori left the house, squinting against the harsh Florida sun directly overhead.

"What's that?" Lori asked. They wandered slowly towards the Abbott home, their gait not particularly eager.

"Why do you consistently attend Lenore's luncheons?" Brennan asked, the writer within her secretly liking her own spontaneous alliteration. "You don't strike me as the kind of woman who enjoys this sort of fanfare, and in fact, I feel secure in stating that you do _not_ enjoy these small parties. So why bother going at all?" Lisa smiled, pushing a windblown curl out of her long, slim face.

"Keeps the peace," she said plainly. "It's like calling your mother-in-law on Sunday afternoon and listening to her bitch about how messy your house is. You don't want to, you might even hate it, but you do it anyway. You do it because if you didn't, it would be way worse than enduring the ten minutes of kvetching until you can pass the phone off to your husband without seeming rude. Those ten minutes a week make up for a lifetime of outright war, you know? That's how this is. I spend a few hours a week eating free sandwiches and drinking free liquor, and Lenore mostly stays out of my business.

"She doesn't invite me because she likes me; she does it because if I was the only person on the block who she didn't invite, she'd look like a heinous bitch. And I don't come because I like her; I come because if I didn't, I'd be the only person on the block who didn't, and then _I'd_ look like the heinous bitch. We do it to keep the peace, we both know that. Sometimes you make sacrifices."

"I see," Brennan said, taking it into careful thought. "The social orientation here really is intricate." Lori sighed in resignation and nodded.

"We all play our little part," she agreed. "Sometimes I want to just move away, sell the house and go somewhere where we don't have any neighbors. But the kids love their friends, and when it comes right down to it…" Lori looked out wistfully to their right, at the piece of shore they could see between houses. Brennan could barely look straight at it, for the way the light reflected off the broken surface of the ocean. "Who could move away from that? It's like it won't let you. Even if you wanted to… you're just caught up in it, it's bewitching, really. It's a shame you guys don't really live here. It fills up a part of you that you didn't know was missing."

Brennan considered what the woman had just said to her. The bewitching quality of the ocean, the enchantment, the reverence. The way it filled part of you that you didn't know was missing, like the emptiness on her ring finger, or where his hand wrapped around the curve of her waist, or his presence across the table from her at breakfast time. Places she didn't know were empty until they were filled. Filled in the way he stood next to her at the sink and elbowed her playfully, splashing water and laughing like the tide going out—quiet, distant, commanding. Present. Filled in the way he let his arm hang around her shoulder, opening up the space next to him where she could fill the gap and breathe between his breaths. Filled in the way something in her stretched to its limits when he looked at her, really looked at her, and smiled. She sighed.

"You get it, huh?" Lori said, raising her finger to ring the doorbell, hand hanging in mid-air for a moment. Brennan nodded.

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I do."


	13. Loose Lips Have Sunk This Ship

**A/N:** The garbage is overflowing. The dishes are piling up to the bottom edge of the window. I cannot use my desk because I have spent so long piling clean, unfolded clothes on it. I work almost every day, and by the time I get home I barely have enough energy to keep my eyes open, much less take care of school work, and even less to write fanfic. So this is, naturally, the perfect time for me to update this story... when I actually have no time at all. I'm chalking it up to stress management and letting that be my excuse. :) There are two more chapters left. (I might be lying, there might be 3, but I see 2 right now.) Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

* * *

_We can all hang ourselves from gold chandeliers_  
_And drink goodbye to all, all the pain and fears_  
_Loose lips have sunk this ship to a shallow grave_  
_Washed up upon the rocks, I won't be saved_  
_I won't be saved_

_I'm stuck in a coma_  
_Stuck in a never-ending sleep_  
_And some day I will wake up_  
_And realize I gave up everything..._

_- Can't Be Saved, Senses Fail_

* * *

Brennan swirled the wine in her glass idly, trying hard not to look bored and sure she was failing miserably. Although she was quite positive she did not look as abjectly horrified by the topic of conversation as Lori did. That woman did not even bother hiding her facial expressions, which frequently morphed from amused, to puzzled, to disgusted, back to amused, to one that was simply eyes shut, head shaking slowly back and forth, before taking a deep gulp of the drink in her own hand. Brennan found watching Lori's reactions to the conversation around them, which they were immersed in but not a part of, was even more entertaining than the conversation itself.

"… and I told Hank, there's just _no_ way I can allow him to keep those silly wrestling trophies in the garage, they just don't go with the organizational scheme at all! You don't see my high school softball trophies lying around wasting space, do you? But men just don't understand, they're so sentimental over the silliest things," Lenore said, shaking her head and pressing her lips against the edge of her glass, pinching the stem delicately between her fingers. They sat in a semi-circle in her living room, sipping wine and eating finger sandwiches. The conversation for the past half-hour had been dominated by Lenore's decorating scheme, and Brennan did not know how much more she could take of hearing about paint swatches, interior designer cat fights, and brushed nickel versus stainless steel. She didn't know how any human with functioning upper-level cognitive skills could sit and listen to this without throwing something.

The only thing that had been remotely interesting about the past two hours was the text message she had gotten from Booth about forty five minutes prior. It was to tell her that Hodgins had found traces of a lacquer containing toluene in the victims' scant fleshy remains. What that meant, he wasn't entirely sure, he was still processing the samples, but he wanted them to know what he knew so far. It was while Brennan was toying with what different compounds might contain toluene and would lead to a potential killer that she spaced out completely.

"How about you, Christine?" It took Brennan a full five seconds to realize she was being addressed directly, which may not sound like a long time until you inject that five seconds of silence into the middle of what had been a rather active conversation. Lori cleared her throat loudly next to Brennan, who looked up and realized that Lenore was speaking to her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lori smirk into her wine glass. Brennan had nearly forgotten that she knew now.

"What about me?" Brennan asked. Lenore gave her a patient glare.

"Your house, silly," she said, her voice heavy and syrupy as usual. "What are your decorating plans? Who are you hiring?"

"I, uh…" she said, having not even the vaguest clue how to bullshit an answer to this question. "I don't know, to be honest. I kind of like the house as it is." Lenore tittered obnoxiously, and it elicited a chorus of obligated laughter from the other ladies. Aside from Brennan and Lori, there was Joanne Marrone, the Long Island-native who Brennan had been only barely introduced to once, as well as a couple of Lenore's socialite friends, wives of Hank's coworkers. They all seemed to fit the same mold—painted on faces, silicone-enhanced figures, three-inch pumps and low-cut cocktail dresses befitting of someone at least twenty years their junior.

"She's just _so_ funny! Isn't she funny?" Lenore said to the ladies, nodding her head with an almost painful-looking smile plastered across her cheeks. She sighed good-naturedly and finished off her glass, what had to be her third or fourth of the afternoon. It was not even two o'clock yet and she had already finished half the bottle by herself, but did not seem even the slightest bit drunk. Brennan thought to herself that this woman either had an extraordinary tolerance to alcohol, or drank rather heavily on a frequent basis, or both.

"She said she's probably going with Shane O'Neil," Lori interjected.

"Oh, he's so lovely," Lenore said with an approving nod. "Very chic, very modern. Good choice. Have you picked up swatches yet?"

The conversation went on like this for quite a while, and Brennan was unsure of how much she could take when there was a knock at the door. Lenore made a confused face, touching her cheek with her bright pink claws.

"Well, I wonder who that could be," she mused aloud, staggering only slightly as she stood up from the couch, making her way towards the front door. Brennan heard Lori take in a sharp, audible breath when the front door pulled back to reveal Elizabeth Christiansen, John's alcoholic wife, standing on the front porch. Brennan only barely recognized her from the first and only time she'd seen her—being dragged into her own home by her husband, kicking and screaming, while her twelve-year-old daughter watched in horror from Lori Wilder's front door. She had long red hair and very dark, round eyes, with a child-like buttoned nose and a mouth almost too big for her face. She had a worn, exhausted look to her, the way Brennan knew she often did after several days of working a case non-stop. But something about her seemed… present. Whether it was the vivid cinnamon-spice hair or the way her hands rested on her hips, arms akimbo, she seemed to demand attention without even trying.

"I saw the cars," she said with a steady voice. "Didn't realize we were having a neighborhood shindig." The woman brushed right past Lenore, whose mouth was agape in a most unflattering way, and took a seat on the end of the couch next to Lori.

"I… well, I'd heard you weren't _feeling well_," Lenore said, and not without a heavy dose of venom, pushing the door closed and hurrying into the living room, her heels click-click-clicking down the tiled hallway. "Didn't want to make you feel obligated to come if you weren't up to it."

"Oh, I'm up to it," Elizabeth said in an almost haughty way. "Been up to it for the past four days, actually."

"No!" Lori said, eyebrows raised, her expression torn between shock and what was clearly a deep, abiding love for her friend. "You're…?"

"Four days sober, yep," Elizabeth said, loudly and without a bit of shame. The other women in the circle looked down almost in unison, and Brennan could understand why—it seemed almost taboo, the way this woman proclaimed her battle with addiction so openly. Although from what Brennan understood, it was no secret to anyone there.

"That's fantastic!" Lori said, nearly dropping her wine glass on the table as she pulled her friend into a hug.

"Thanks," she said. "There's something about hearing your daughter tell her friend on the phone that her mom is dead because she's so fucking ashamed of you… something about that snaps you into reality pretty quick. So I'm sober, and I'm here. I like what you did with the drapes, Lenore. Haven't been here in years, it feels like."

"Thank you," the woman said tersely, clearly displeased by the brash woman's presence in her home but too polite to do anything about it.

"And I don't think I've met you," Elizabeth said, holding her hand out to Brennan.

"I'm Christine," Brennan said, genuinely smiling for probably the first time since she walked into the house. Any person who could make Lenore Abbott so immensely uncomfortable within the span of two minutes was a friend of hers.

"Hi, I'm Elizabeth, it's nice to meet you," the woman said. "You haven't seen much of me because, well, I'm an addict. My husband has talked about you, though, now that you mention your name. Your husband is Sam, right?" Brennan nodded. "He seems to really like you two. I'm going to be gone for a while, leaving for a rehab program on Monday morning, but I'll be back. We'll have to have you over for dinner then."

"_Ahem_," Lenore said, interrupting Elizabeth and Brennan's conversation with a loud interjection. "I don't mean to be rude, I just don't think this is particularly… appropriate… conversation topic."

"Why not?" Elizabeth asked bluntly. Lori snorted; Brennan pursed her lips together, resisting the strong urge to grin. "I'm not ashamed of it anymore, I'm getting help. Why should I hide away, just because you don't like it? Because it's not perfect?"

"That's quite enough," Lenore said, face reddening, try as she might to keep her anger in check. "There's no reason to ruin a perfectly good luncheon by bringing up unsavory topics of discussion. We were just talking about how Christine and Sam are going to redecorate their home…"

"Scintillating conversation, I'm sure," Elizabeth said dryly, rising from her seat on the couch. "Don't worry, I'm not staying. I just wanted to come say hello before I leave for a few weeks, and to let you know something."

"And what is that, exactly?" Lenore said, seeming to press the lid down tightly on her frustration at the idea of this woman leaving her home soon. Elizabeth faced Lenore fully, narrowed her eyes down at the woman, and suddenly became very hardened.

"_I know._" Rather than becoming angry as Brennan would have suspected, Lenore's face went blank, any trace of emotion completely wiped from her features.

"That's nice," she said. "You can go now."

"Ask Secia," Elizabeth said with a snarl. "She'll tell you, too. She was on the beach."

"Right," Lenore said with a haughty laugh, fire in her eyes. "Ask the nine year old who can barely put together a coherent sentence. That's believable. You're a drunk, Elizabeth. Your own children can't even rely on you, who would ever believe anything coming from you? Go home." It was the first truly nasty display that Brennan had seen from Lenore since they first came to the neighborhood, and she was stunned. The whole room, in fact, was in dumbfounded silence, watching the exchange the way one watches a car wreck—disturbed, but unable to turn away. The rage rippling off of Lenore in almost palpable waves was uncontrollable, and unlike anything Brennan could have imagined coming from a woman who kept herself under such tight control.

"I may be a drunk, but at least I'm not…" Before she could finish her sentence, Lenore was at her, grabbing the woman by the shoulders and shoving her hard into the wall behind her. Brennan winced as she heard the woman's head smack against the wall, her body going limp for a second before she caught herself.

"Elizabeth!" Lori shouted, jumping off the couch and grabbing her friend by the upper arm, holding her steady. "Jesus Christ, Lenore, what the fuck is wrong with you?" The blonde woman seemed to suddenly become aware of herself, and sucked a breath in between her veneered teeth, pausing for a moment before speaking again.

"I am… so sorry," she squeaked. "I really don't know what has come over me. Perhaps it… perhaps it would be best if we ended the afternoon here, don't you think, ladies?" Nobody argued, each of them giving Lenore a polite parting nod before they fled the scene. Elizabeth shook Lori off, insisting that she was fine, and Brennan followed on their heels out the door.


	14. In the Pulse There Lies Conviction

**A/N:** I feel like you are all so tired of my empty apologies for waiting so long to post between chapters, so I'm just not even going to go there anymore. Long story short, this chapter did not want to be written, but I have been trying. I have been trying for weeks, actually. I kept opening the document, trying to write it, but something was missing. I just wasn't in the right head space to write what needed to be written. To use a phrase that I often yell in frustration at Liz (lizook), it just "wouldn't write right." But in the 7 or so weeks between my last update and this one, a lot has happened. My heart has mended some, and broken more. My mental well-being has tanked, risen, and tanked again. It is, actually, Mental Health Awareness Month, again. It was May of 2010 when I started this fic. One year, 14 chapters. I can't believe I've been working on this for a year and it's not even that long, and it's still not done. But it will be done soon. There are 2 more chapters left, and now that I'm done with school for a few months, all I'm doing is working, which means I have a lot of free time on my hands when I'm home to do whatever I want... hopefully that means more writing.

Anyway, I'm done rambling now. If you need a quick refresher about what's going on, I would suggest just skimming over the last chapter briefly, that should catch you up to speed. Also, I really hope you like the end of this chapter, it's been about 13 chapters coming. It will, hopefully, be worth the long wait. :) Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

* * *

_Cryptic words meander _  
_ Now there is a song beneath the song _  
_ One day you'll learn _  
_ You'll soon discern its true meaning _

_ An interesting detachment _  
_ A listless poem of love sincere _  
_ Desire, despair _  
_ Overlapping melodies..._

_- Song Beneath the Song, Maria Taylor_

* * *

"I'm fine, really," Elizabeth said as Lori sat her down on Brennan's couch, still hanging onto her friend's arm. "You don't need to baby me…"

"She knocked the crap out of you, Ellie," Lori said, using an affectionate nick-name for her friend, eyes full of concern. "Hey, where's that ice pack?" she barked.

"On my way," Booth hollered from the kitchen, taking a bag of frozen peas out of the freezer and banging it on the counter a few times to loosen it up before carrying it over to where the women were crowded around each other, handing it to Elizabeth.

"Thanks," she said, holding it tenderly to the back of her head. "I'll be fine, really. It was just a little bump…"

"That was quite more than a little bump," Brennan observed in a concerned tone. "You temporarily lost consciousness, that kind of hit could lead to a concussion. I'm surprised there was no laceration of the skull, to be honest."

"I've got a lotta hair," Elizabeth said with a smirk and a wince as she leaned her head back against the couch, resting the bag of peas between the cushion and her skull. "Lori, I need to talk to you about something. It's really important, it's about…" She gave Booth and Brennan a wary look. "Well, we can talk later, but I do need to talk to you before I go, okay?"

"If it's about their murder, you can talk here," Lori said. Booth cleared his throat loudly but she shook her head. "It's okay, Ellie is the most trustworthy person I know, she won't blow your cover." The redhead on the couch furrowed her brows and looked up at Booth and Brennan in turn.

"Cover?"

"Well," Booth began, shifting a little uncomfortably. Any time a lie was exposed, even if it was a lie for the good of humanity as a whole, he felt like less of a person. "She and I—" he motioned over to Brennan, "—aren't really in medical sales. I'm a special agent with the FBI, Seeley Booth, and this is my partner, Dr. Temperance Brennan. She's a forensic anthropologist, we're here working undercover to try and solve Bill and Sheryl's murder. If you have information about it, it would be a good idea to tell me now." Elizabeth's face quickly went through a series of phases—surprise, thoughtful consideration, what even looked like slight amusement, and then resolution.

"Information? I've got information for you, sure," Elizabeth said, trying to sit up more fully in the couch but being sent back into the slouching position both by the pounding in her head and the force of Lori's hand on her shoulder. "Lenore Abbott killed them, plain and simple." Booth coughed on his spit.

"Wait, Lenore? Come on, really?" he asked, raising his brows. "What's your proof?"

"Secia Melendez," Elizabeth said resolutely. "Well, she's part of it, but she saw it. She told me."

"Isn't she the little girl with…?" Booth began.

"Down syndrome? Yes, she has Down syndrome. But she's not stupid, and she doesn't make things up. She didn't even really know what she'd seen, it wasn't until I put the pieces together that I realized what she actually witnessed."

"What'd she say?" Lori asked. Elizabeth tried to sit up again, but Lori forced her back down. "And stop doing that, you need to rest." Elizabeth gave her a distasteful glare before she began her story.

"Well," she said. "The kids were in the back yard, and I was in the house. I was… well, I was in the house," she said, a sense of shame cast over her facial features. She left the, _I was in the house getting high on pain killers_ unspoken. "Anyway, I could hear Maria, the older Melendez girl, sitting on the back dock talking to Liv, my girl. They're close in age, Liv just turned 13 and Maria is going on 12, you know how girls that age are. Maria had Secia with her just to keep an eye on her while her parents were gone, I guess, and she was running around back there while the girls were talking.

"Anyway, I heard Maria say, 'Let's get going to Darwin and Harmony's house', because it was one of those nights, you know? The pizza and movie nights you guys have," she said, pointing the comment to Lori. "And Secia started throwing a royal fit about it. She's, you know, got a few emotional regulation issues because of the Down syndrome, but she's not one to throw fits, she's usually a pretty quiet, laid-back kid for the most part. Maria was trying to calm her down but she just kept saying she didn't want to walk past 'the mean lady's house.' It was the Abbotts' house, was the one she meant, Hank and Lenore's place. She said, 'She'll hit me, she'll hit me.'

"That got me thinking, because Lenore is a bitch, sure, but she'd never been flat-out mean to any of the kids that I've seen. And I'm sure she's never hit Secia before; she's never alone with anyone's kids anyway so when would she be able to? Liv knew it too, because I could hear her thinking the same thing, she kept asking the girl, 'When did Mrs. Abbott ever hit you, Secia? When did she hit anyone?' She's a smart girl, my kid. She knew something was up.

"Anyway, they couldn't ever get any more details out of Secia, she just started crying harder and wouldn't talk anymore. I went outside with some popsicles and gave one to her, it always used to calm Liv down when she was a little girl and upset so I thought it might help. It did, she stopped crying and ate the popsicle. Then I went back inside because… well… Liv doesn't really like when I come out around her friends, I know that."

She spoke the end piece in a tone of nothing but utter shame, but owning that shame. She didn't deny it, she knew it blatantly—her child was ashamed of her, and she had good reason to be. Booth was surprised to find himself feeling… was it _pity?_... for the woman speaking in front of him. He didn't know how he could pity her, she was the addict ruining her kids' lives, but somehow she seemed… he didn't really know, he just felt a strong sense of something towards her as she told her story, something he respected in her.

"All I know is that she is terrified of Lenore now, she won't go anywhere near their house, I've watched the kids walking down the street to Dave and Lori's place. They practically have to drag Secia down the street past their driveway, she screams about it, she was never like that before Bill and Sheryl died."

"Perhaps it's just a traumatic response to the deaths of people in her life? Children with developmental disorders often have difficulty accepting any sort of change," Brennan posited, but Elizabeth shook her head hard.

"No, it's not just that, Secia is weird about change but she barely even knew Bill and Sheryl, and I don't even think she knows they're dead. They don't live in the neighborhood so she only saw them here and there, I don't think she's even noticed that they're gone. But she looks like she's fit to have a heart attack any time she sees the Abbotts' house, or either one of them walking down the street, _especially_ Lenore. Lenore did something, she saw her do something, I'm convinced. She saw her to do something awful and now she's scared to death of her. You put that together with the Yankee Lake project and…"

"Again with this damn water thing," Booth said, throwing his hands up. "Sorry, I don't mean to yell at you, it's just that it's all I hear about down here. Everywhere we turn in this case it's Yankee Lake this, Yankee Lake that."

"Maybe you keep hearing about it because it's the center of this whole thing," Elizabeth pointed out plainly. "Maybe you should stop ignoring it and focus on it, and you'll find your answer. You're obviously a good cop, I don't have to tell you that. Don't discount how crazy people get about money—it's one of the oldest motives in the world to kill someone over. I've got a Ph.D. in Literature, I read a lot," she added, as if needing a reason for her knowledge. "You don't need me to tell you just how much of American literature is filled with people killing other people because of money. If you haven't totally explored that motive, I wouldn't just throw your hands at it. Think about it."

Booth chewed his lip, brows knit, staring down at the Spanish tile beneath his feet. This whole time it had been nothing but Yankee Lake left and right, and he had been, for the most part, ignoring it. It just didn't seem like a plausible motive for murder—that, or it was so trite, so common, so _easy_, it just seemed to be too under his nose for it to be a reality. It couldn't really all come down to this environmentalist fight against big contractors destroying the environment… could it? Was piping water really enough to kill someone over? He'd seen people killed for less, but…

"I need to make a call," he said, heading towards the back deck of the house. "I'll be right back." While he disappeared through the sliding glass doors, Brennan looked down at Elizabeth Christiansen, seeming to study her.

"Elizabeth," she finally asked. "When Lenore pushed you, did she catch you off guard or did she legitimately push you with enough force to throw you against the wall that hard? You are tall and thin, but pound for pound you most likely weigh more than Lenore Abbott simply given your height—you are probably 5'8", and she is maybe 5'3" or 5'4" at the most, even in heels. She has the advantage of a lower center of gravity, but is she that strong?"

"Honestly? Yeah, she is," Elizabeth said. "I thought she might take a catty swipe at me, try to slap me, you know? I wasn't expecting her to shove me, but I was expecting her to do something, so I was ready. I didn't know she would or could push me that damn hard. Why?"

"I need to talk to Booth," Brennan said after chewing on her thoughts for a moment. "I'll be back." Brennan excused herself out onto the porch, leaving Lori and Elizabeth to talk amongst themselves. Booth was leaning against the railing of the back deck when she got out there, his shadow cast long onto the sand stretched out in front of them as the sun sank behind the house, early evening sky ablaze in pink and tangerine hues.

"Do you think, you know, psychologically, that someone could kill for something like that? Just for the money?" Booth asked, hating himself every time he had to call the forever young psychologist for a consult but knowing that Sweets would probably have a better grasp of the psychological realities of motive, at least from an academic point of view. Brennan leaned in next to Booth on the guard rail and pressed her head against the other side of the phone, listening in to both ends of the conversation. Booth could feel her hot breath near his face, and it sent a pleasant tingling up his spine, to the point that he almost forgot Sweets was talking to him.

"For the money? Yes. But it's not just about money, it's about social standing. And as far as killing for prestige? Absolutely yes, without hesitation," Sweets said on the other end of the phone line. "This woman you described to me, Lenore Abbott, she's a trophy wife. She lives her life as a trophy wife. It's not just a label, it's her, it's how she identifies herself.

"The life she lives there is her identity—the big house, the nice cars, the designer clothes, the parties, all of that is central to Lenore Abbott's ego. I don't mean ego like an inflated head, I mean ego as in concept of self. Her _ego_, the way she centrally views herself as a person, as an identity, is based in her socialite lifestyle. The prestige of wealth is everything to her, period."

"So if that was threatened…" Booth began.

"… then you're not just threatening her lifestyle," Sweets said. "You're threatening the very essence of Lenore Abbott's identity. It might be hard for you to understand because psychologically, you don't anchor your entire identity on one thing. Your life is much more rounded—you're not just an FBI agent, you're also a retired soldier, a father, and your life is full of deep, meaningful relationships and people you love deeply, like what you have with Dr. Brennan…" Booth coughed loudly and turned a shade of pink comparable to that of the sunset sky, while Brennan stared resolutely out at the ocean. Sweets may not have known that Brennan could hear him, but she and Booth both did.

"Right, right, so I've got more going on than just my job, I get it," Booth said brusquely.

"Exactly," Sweets said. "But this woman doesn't. She doesn't work, she doesn't have any investment in meaningful love relationships outside of the one with her husband, and her relationship with her husband sounds, to me, predicated on their lifestyle together. Take away the glamor and wealth, and I believe that you would take away everything central to Lenore Abbott's life. You would, essentially, be taking her life away from her, in her eyes. Anything that ever mattered to her, anything that she identifies herself by, the way she wakes up in the morning and looks in the mirror and recognizes herself as a person… that would all be gone, if the Yankee Lake project went down the tubes and they lost all their investment money. Do I think a person could be motivated to kill to save all that? Yeah, for sure."

"That's what I needed to hear, Sweets, thanks," Booth said, hanging up the phone and slipping it back into his pocket. He leaned forward on the railing, head hanging down, and took in a deep sigh of salty ocean air. Brennan found herself mimicking his motions, her shoulders slumped, weight leaning in on her elbows, but she looked out onto the horizon instead. The water seemed to turn a soft grey as it melted in with the sky, light waning and turning the brilliant cloudless blue into a medley of color that was beginning to melt into dark blue.

"Lenore Abbott is the correct height," Brennan finally said after a quiet moment. "When I saw her push Elizabeth at the lunch party, I realized, if she had pushed Sheryl Hawkins the same way she did Elizabeth, and did it against the knick-knack shelf we found covered in Sheryl's blood, it absolutely could have caused injuries consistent with those found on the remains."

"You think Sweets is right?" he asked. "You think all this really could've been over the stupid water project?"

"Well, you heard what he said," Brennan said, hoping Booth understood that she meant the part he said about Lenore Abbott, not the part he said about Booth loving her. "For someone like Lenore Abbott, it's not just about the money, it's about her lifestyle. If she were to lose that, she would lose her central identity. It would be absolutely terrifying to her. I could understand that." Booth looked up and gave her a puzzled look.

"You could what?" he asked.

"I could understand it," she repeated. "The fear of losing who you are, losing everything you know to be true about yourself, the way you see yourself… it would be like someone telling me I couldn't be a forensic anthropologist anymore."

"No, it's not," he said firmly. "It's totally different."

"Is it really?" she asked. "Human culture is a way of constructing the personal ego, there's even a subfield of psychology that focuses on sociocultural psychological influences. The world we construct within the culture we are bound by exerts a huge influence on how we define our very selves—if we lose that, what are we? Who are we, outside of the external definitions we derive from our lives?"

"That's… really existential of you, Bones," Booth said, almost smiling.

"I'm not philosophizing, I'm asking a legitimate anthropological question," she said. "Every way that you define yourself—your job, your status, your role in your family…" she paused for a brief moment, leaving out the last part Sweets highlighted "… it all comes from a cultural concept of what it means to be a man, to be yourself as a man, in your culture. If you lost that, how would you know who you were or what your life meant?"

"It almost sounds like you're defending her, if she did do it," he said in a cautious tone. She shook her head.

"No, I'm not," she disagreed, tuning finally to face him instead of the endless horizon stretching out before them. A breeze blew through her hair, tangling it with the wet salt hanging on the wind, and she raked it away from her face with her fingers. "I'm just saying that Sweets is absolutely right—losing yourself would be a huge motive for murder, one that I can understand anthropologically. One of the best ways to subjugate a group of people is to destroy their cultural identity. If they have no cultural context within which to shape their concept of self, then who are they? They are whoever you want them to be."

"Human beings are not empty vessels, we aren't made by what's outside, we're made by what's inside," Booth said firmly. "It's not the things that happen out here—" he made a vague motion to the outside world at large "—that decide who we are, how we see ourselves, what our life is worth. It's what's in you that makes you who you are, it's the stuff in you that determines how you understand who you are and what you can do."

"I don't think that's true, Booth," Brennan said. "A lot of social science—disciplines within anthropology, sociology, and even psychology—has posited that it is primarily, if not completely, external forces that shape the ego. I do believe that individuals have biological personality dispositions that interact with the environment to cause certain behaviors or belief systems—like your belief in a higher power, for example—but as a whole I feel very strongly that culture is the strongest determinant of our personal identities. Biology dictates behavior, culture dictates understanding of yourself within the world."

"That's a very interesting point of view," Booth said. "But ultimately, it's also bullshit. We're people, we're humans, you're always saying how complex we are—we have to be more than just a series of events in our lives, or a bunch of cultural beliefs, or the way our hormones make us feel."

He looked her straight in the eye as he said this, and she felt her face flush under his gaze. It was intense, and it begged—begged her to understand what he was saying, to hear the message between the lines, the song beneath the song. It pulled at her in a way that was more than the words he said, and she felt it draw her in from somewhere deep beneath her breastbone. Something she could not name or define, a place that existed within the human body without existing, the place people always talk about being empty, or full, or breaking into a million pieces. Something very much like the heart.

"We're more than that," he continued. "We have to be. We're more than even all of those things put together, Bones. You're more than that, you know you are. All of the things in you that make you Temperance, that's not just culture, or life experience. That's you. That's the human in you. Anyone can see that. I see it."

In that moment, suddenly, she heard it. Every touch, every look, every word, everything in the past week that had been until this very moment, a game, a façade, a means of slipping into a subculture unknown, it all came together. Like a shell washed ashore in the reaching tide, it was a singularly beautiful moment of sudden revelation. She saw it.

He did not put his hand on her waist because he was playing a part. She did not make them lunch and they did not eat together over the stacks of files spread out between them simply because it was their break hour at the Jeffersonian. They did not lean into the couch cushions so many nights with their feet propped up on the coffee table, his arm lazy around her shoulders, eyes closed, listening to the command of the ocean because anyone was watching. Everything they were here, everything they did, everything they said, they had done under the guise of a role to play—an external force acting upon them, forcing their hands, dictating their actions.

But it was not true. All the little moments, all of the quiet bowls of cereal and nights spent listening to the water wash the world away, the unwatched, unnoticed touches that they could reason away until this very moment by the job they were doing… they were not a job. They were not an external definition of who they were supposed to be—Christine and Sam. They were the actual, internal, very central definition of who they were—Booth and Brennan. And suddenly, finally, as quickly as the sun had ducked behind the peak of the A-frame roof and cast them into a chill nighttime shadow, she saw it. She heard it. She felt it, in every rapid inhale and every drop of blood coursing through her pounding heart, and in her heart of hearts, the heart that was not real but existed. She understood. She _finally_ understood.

"Bones, are you okay?" he asked, and she suddenly realized that she had been completely out of tune with reality for probably more than a few seconds. But she wasn't out of tune with reality—she was just finally, for the first time, tuning _in_ to reality.

"I love you," she said plainly. "I… I just realized that. I don't love you because I'm pretending to, or because we're supposed to as fake spouses. I just… I just love you." His face shifted through a multitude of expressions, but it finally settled on one that she had seen before, that her heart knew, and that put her into immediate ease.

He closed the gap between them, and their lips touched. The salt, the sand, the tide, it all slipped away. Nothing else existed; nothing else had to. All was gone but them, and the sound of the water's eternal command, that which never escaped them and never would—_be still._ And in the reach of each other's arms, in the breath between each moment impassioned and long-awaited, they were.


	15. Passage Ways to Windows That Don't Close

**A/N:** I've been writing this chapter for a long time. I started writing it very shortly after I published the last one, but it was a slow, painstaking process. I wanted to get it just right, because the entire first half of the chapter deals with a fairly sensitive topic. I wanted to do absolute justice to the character, and the syndrome as a whole. I wanted to convey a sense of absolute respect to those with Down syndrome, and to not create a caricature or stereotype of Down syndrome. I wanted to be real and honest, and respectful, and considerate, and as well-educated about it as possible before I wrote and published this chapter. I sincerely hope that you feel that I did justice to the character.

I will try to update again soon, seeing as the story is nearly complete, but Muse comes and goes. At any rate, enjoy this chapter, and let me know what you think!

* * *

_Where do you live?_  
_ Love is a place_  
_ Where are you from?_  
_ She says, ask yourself, ask anyone_  
_ What's holding up her face? _  
_ Nothing but blue skies_  
_ Passage ways the mind's eye_  
_ Contemplates_

_- Love is a Place, Metric_

* * *

Booth stood out on the porch with Brennan, Dave Wilder, and Ramón Melendez, the harsh beach sun reflecting off of the white sugar sand and burning the back of his neck, salty breeze biting his eyes. The four adults looked inward through the sliding glass door at a small girl sitting at Booth and Brennan's dining room table, coloring in a book with markers. She looked too small to be nine, maybe six or seven at most, and her dark hair was pleated into two tidy French braids. She hummed quietly to herself as she colored, ankles crossed and tucked underneath the chair she sat in. Just looking at her from the back, you would have no idea that when she was coming into material being, when her genetic basis was creating and splitting apart, one set of chromosomes didn't split properly. Trisomy 21, an extra copy of the twenty-first chromosome. Down syndrome.

"Can a child with Down syndrome even provide testimony in court?" Brennan asked, voice laced with doubt.

"She's not retarded," Ramón said, with more bite than he probably intended judging by the apologetic face he made immediately upon speaking. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound rude. People just… they judge, you know?"

"Yes, people with Down syndrome can testify," Booth said, answering her question. "There's a long precedence of children and adults with Down syndrome testifying successfully in court. Usually it's against people who have abused them, unfortunately, but yes, they can. I asked Sweets, he said as long as a psychologist declares the person to be mentally competent then it doesn't matter if they have Down syndrome, autism, whatever, people with developmental disorders are considered sound witnesses."

"This isn't going to upset her, is it?" Ramón asked warily, still visibly shaken by the reveal that his buddy "Sam" from the bar the other night was actually an undercover FBI agent. "Because if it is…"

"No, I'm not trying to upset her," Booth reassured. "All I want to do is ask her some questions about what she saw that night."

"She was at John and Elizabeth's house the night Bill and Sheryl died," Ramón said. "Dave and Lori usually have the kids on those nights, but since they were out of town Maria went over to her friend Liv's house that night, and she took Secia with her. She likes to… she gives me and her mom a break sometimes, you know? My wife wasn't happy with the special ed in our school so she home schools Secia now, and that takes a lot out of her. We love her," he said firmly, as if challenging any doubt. "We love her so much, but she… she can be exhausting sometimes. It's all worth it, but sometimes you just need a break."

"Any parent does," Booth said, giving Ramón an assuring pat on the shoulder. "I have a kid too, Secia's age, and God knows I love him but sometimes… it's kids, right? What can you do? Nothing wrong with needing a break." Ramón gave him a grateful smile.

"Yeah," he said. "Well, anyway, she was with Maria and Liv, so you might wanna ask them too." Booth nodded and opened the sliding glass door, letting himself into the living room. The little girl looked up from the table and smiled warmly at him. Booth couldn't help but smile back; she was so bubbly it was infectious. Her facial features were very typical of Down syndrome, with a soft rounding of her eyes at the inner corner and a small mouth that was now pressed together in concentration as she forced the marker to stay inside the lines.

"Hi," she said after turning back to her book. "I'm coloring a cat."

"I see that," Booth said, taking a seat at the table across from her. "It's a nice cat."

"Thanks," she said. "I like cats. I have a cat, she's real soft. Do you want to color?"

"Sure," Booth said. The girl quickly flipped through the back of her book and ripped out a page with a boy throwing a baseball on it, and handed it to Booth. He took a green marker out of her box and started coloring in the grass.

"Thank you," he said, and she nodded.

"You're welcome," she said back, looking up and smiling at him once again before turning back to her work. "What's your name?"

"Seeley," he said, opting to give her his real name.

"That's… that's a 'S' sound. My name starts with 'S' too, Secia. But my full name is Cecilia, but it's too _aburrida_, I like Secia better. That's what my family calls me."

"Aburrida?" Booth asked.

"Uh…" Secia stopped for a second, trying to think of the English translation. "Stuffy, like, boring. You don't speak Spanish?"

"Nope," Booth said, thoroughly impressed by how clearly and intelligibly the child in front of him could speak not just one language, but two. He had clearly underestimated her based on the 'Down syndrome' label. He felt a pang of shame as they continued their conversation.

"Oh," she said. "I do. It's funny 'cause you can talk about people in the store and they don't know what you're saying," she said with a giggle, and then a full-blown laugh. Her speech was slightly slow but her laughter welled up from her like a bright light, and it bounced around the cavernous house and echoed like church bells.

"That must be fun," Booth said, trying to control his own laughter in response to hers. It was difficult, because she had this wonderful Peter Pan-like quality of impish childhood innocence to her. He couldn't help but laugh.

"Uh huh," she said, nodding her head and picking up a different marker. Booth switched, too, capping the green and picking up a bright yellow one, filling in the sun in sweeping yellow strokes.

"Hey Secia," Booth began, "do you have any brothers and sisters?" He knew the answer to his own question already, but he thought it would be easier to let her talk about them than to bombard her with knowledge he already had, potentially making her wary of him.

"Yep," she said. "Two, R.J. and Maria. They're both bigger than me. R.J. thinks he's _so_ cool, but he's always nice to me, he helps me pick up my toys. Maria braided my hair, see?" Secia said, using her free hand to hold out one of her braids for Booth to inspect. He nodded.

"I see that," he said. "That was nice of her. Do you spend lots of time with your brother and sister?"

"Yeah," Secia said with an emphatic nod. "Lots, lots with Maria. She takes me places a lot."

"What kind of places do you like to go to?" he asked.

"Uuhm," she started, thinking for a moment. "The beach, the store, I like the store, 'specially the toy store. And sometimes we go to her friends' houses and she can hang out with them while I watch TV and color. I like TV too."

"That sounds like fun, Maria sounds like a really nice sister," Booth said.

"Most of the time," Secia agreed with an impish grin. "Sometimes she yells but Mama gets her real good when she yells at me." Secia let out another burst of laughter, and Booth smiled. He knew that feeling well—he could remember Jared, perfectly developmentally sound, always getting away with murder while Booth got told to 'stop yelling at your brother', even when the little jerk really deserved it. He tried to keep the conversation moving in the direction he wanted it to, digging a little deeper.

"You went over to Liv and Aiden's house last week, didn't you?" he asked. Secia nodded, then paused.

"How'd you know?" she asked.

"Your dad told me," Booth said, and Secia nodded, accepting the reason without question.

"Yeah, we did," Secia said. Something about her had changed, though. She looked down at her paper, her grip more intense on the marker, her chin dropped down towards her chest.

"Do you remember what you guys did that night?" Booth asked. "Did you play a game?"

"_No sé_," Secia said quietly.

"I'm sorry?" Booth asked. Secia shrugged.

"I don't know," she said in a clear, almost pained way, each word coming out slowly and carefully. "I don't remember." Booth nodded, looking back down at the picture he was coloring and letting the silence fall between them like a curtain. He could wait. If time was what she needed, he had plenty of it. This was not an interrogation, he was not here to grill her—he knew that wouldn't work even if he wanted to, not with her. He wasn't sure how the best way would be to go about this, but he felt that, for now, silence might be the best option.

Meanwhile, on the beach just a few dozen yards from the porch where Dave and Ramón waited patiently, Brennan stood at the edge of the water with two teenage girls, ankle-deep in the slow-rising tide, water surging over their feet and then back out into the depths of the unfathomable stretch before them. Her pants legs were rolled up to her knees but the bottoms of them were still wet from the water that splashed up around her legs, something she had grown accustomed to over the past week. Liv stood to her right, nearly Brennan's height and as lanky and awkward as she had been when she was twelve. Maria stood next to Liv, shorter and stockier, with a heart-shaped face and a mane of thick, curly black hair that tangled in the salty breeze.

"So you're not really our neighbors, are you?" Liv asked. Brennan shook her head.

"No, we're not," she said. "I'm a forensic anthropologist, I work with the FBI. We're trying to solve the murder of Bill and Sheryl Hawkins."

"What's a forensic anthropologist?" Maria asked. Brennan twisted her mouth slightly before answering.

"To put it simply, I look at human remains and use the evidence to determine cause of death," she said.

"So, like, you can look at a dead body and figure out how that person died?" Liv asked. Brennan nodded.

"Yes," she said. "Specifically, I use evidence found on the skeleton. We have a forensic pathologist who accounts for evidence on the remaining flesh, a forensic etymologist who considers insect activity, and an artist who specializes in forensic reconstructions to solidify our case against the accused."

"Wow," Liv said. "That's a lot of forensic people."

"It takes a village," Brennan quipped. "Well, not a literal village…"

"We got it," Maria said, smirking. Brennan could sense Liv watching her from her peripheral, and she saw that the girl's thin brows were furrowed in what she suspected was a troubled manner, although it would have taken Booth's greater expertise in facial expressions to pin the emotion for certain.

"Do you have something you want to ask me?" Brennan finally asked the girl. Liv shifted her feet in the sand, biting her lip, then looked up directly at Brennan through her thick-rimmed glasses.

"Do you know how Mr. Bill and Miss Sheryl died?" she squeaked. Brennan felt her heart sink in her chest slightly, but she nodded.

"Yes, I do," she said. Then, after a moment, she added, "Would you like to know?" Liv seemed to consider the offer for a minute, then nodded.

"No," Maria interjected as soon as her friend nodded. "No, she don't."

"Yes I do," Liv insisted. "I want to know."

"You don't need to know," Maria said sternly, with a tone much greater than her years, more like that of a mother. Brennan assumed it probably came from spending so much time caring for her younger sister. "They're dead, they're gone, you don't need to know how whoever done it, done it. It's over."

"I just… just tell me," Liv insisted, her face thin and young but resolute. Brennan sighed.

"Sheryl was pushed hard against a knick-knack shelf, it cracked her skull, she bled to death," she said plainly. "Bill was struck in the head by something, and also suffered severe brain hemorrhaging which lead to his death. We don't know what the murder weapon was yet." Brennan was surprised when, rather than looking shocked, horrified, disgusted, or any of the myriad other expressions she would have expected, the girl just looked… affirmed. The girl turned her gaze towards the ocean, bit her bottom lip, then spoke.

"It was a boat oar," Liv said quietly, eyes fixed resolutely on the horizon.

"Liv, shit!" Maria nearly shouted, eyes wide.

"Excuse me?" Brennan said, not quite believing what she'd just heard.

"A boat oar," Liv repeated.

"Shut! Up!" Maria said, giving Liv a solid shove in the shoulder. The tall, thin girl faltered, but kept her ground.

"It was one of the oars from their canoe," Liv continued. "It's hanging up in the garage, probably, unless they did something with it."

"How do you know that?" Brennan asked warily. Maria let out a hugely frustrated sound that was a mix between a sigh and a shout, throwing her hands in the air.

"Because we saw it, okay?" Maria hissed between her gritted teeth. "Because we was there, we saw it. We saw him get killed."


	16. The Most of Freedom and of Pleasure

**A/N:** So you've just learned to assume that when I say "I'll update more quickly next time" that I really mean, "I'll update a month from now", right? I hope so, that way you don't spend the next several weeks holding your breath. Anyway, life's been crazy, as usual, but I had a low-key night so I made some soup, turned on some 80s music, and wrote this chapter. :) Hope you like it! Also, I'm really glad that the response to the last chapter was overwhelmingly positive. With one or two exceptions, everyone was really supportive and approving of the portrayal of Secia, and that made me happy. I hope you enjoy this next chapter at least as much, there are maybe two more before this thing is wrapped up. Let me know what you think!

* * *

_There's a room where the light won't find you_  
_ Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down_  
_ When they do I'll be right behind you_  
_ So glad we've almost made it_  
_ So sad they had to fade it_  
_ Everybody wants to rule the world..._

_- Everybody Wants to Rule the World, Tears for Fears_

* * *

Booth and Brennan stood in the observation room, looking through the one-way pane of glass into the interrogation room. Brennan always felt it was so sterile, with its white walls and shining linoleum floor, like a hospital. They were all the same, whether they were in D.C. or the St. Johns County Bureau satellite office. Every single one of them looked the same, with the same smudge of guilt squirming in their seat in the middle of the room.

Only this time the smudge of guilt wasn't some heartless psychopath or enraged scorned lover, or any of the many other criminals they took to task in those stark, unforgiving rooms. These were two girls, little girls really, not even women. They were twelve years old, eyes puffy from crying, one resting her head on the table, the other with her knees pulled up to her chest. A child advocate sat in a chair nearby, offering no solace, simply her presence. They were just kids, not criminals. Kids.

Booth hated having them there, hated having to drag them in as witnesses to a murder, as individuals who had been withholding information from a federal officer, but he had to. It was the law, as plain as ink on paper, and he had to. But it turned his stomach to see them sitting there. Every time he turned his gaze from Brennan back into the room with Liv and Maria sitting in it, he felt like he could have been looking at Parker, and he thought of how alone they must have felt, and terrified, and how much he wanted to just break through the glass, bust down the doors, and release them into the loving arms of their parents where they belonged.

"You ready?" he asked, rubbing his face vigorously with his hands. Brennan nodded, following him through one door and then another, into the interrogation room. Both girls looked up at them when they entered, their faces pale.

"Hey," Booth said, his voice croaking in a way he wasn't expecting. This just felt wrong.

"Don't we get a lawyer or somethin'?" Maria asked. Liv said nothing.

"I just want to talk to you for a little bit," Booth said. "You're not in trouble."

"Uh huh," Maria said in a tone of disbelief.

"You're not," he repeated. "Not as long as you tell the truth. Besides, you have her," Booth said, motioning to the child advocate who sat unobtrusively in a plastic chair a few feet away from the table, ankle resting on her knee, clipboard resting in her lap. "She's your juvenile advocate, she's here to make sure I don't do anything unfair when I'm asking you questions. Nobody's going to try to take advantage of you or get you in trouble, okay? You can trust me."

"Like hell," Maria scoffed. Liv remained a pasty off-white color and said nothing. "You pretended to be somebody you weren't, you lied to everyone about who you were, and now you're gonna say we can _trust you_. You can't trust the police, they always lie and twist shit around."

"Agent Booth, perhaps it would be more effective if another officer questioned Ms. Melendez and Ms. Christiansen, one whose involvement in the case is less… tangled," the child advocate said. Booth shook his head.

"Look, I did what I did so I could figure out what happened to Bill and Sheryl, you gotta believe that," Booth said to Maria, bending down slightly in his seat and looking her hard in the eyes. "It wasn't a lie to hurt anybody, it was a lie to try to help somebody. To try to help everybody. You understand the difference?"

"Help somebody?" Maria said, almost laughing with derision. "Like how the cops always try to 'help somebody' when they grab my brother and his friends and start getting in their face about shit they didn't do, just because he's Latino? Because he ain't white so he's _obviously_ in a gang, he's _obviously_ some kinda criminal, he's _obviously_ illegal. Like how some pig pulled my dad over and demanded to see his 'documentation', and told him we all needed to go _back to where we came from_? You know where I came from? Here. I was born at the hospital in Jacksonville, I grew up in Florida. I'm an American. But you try tellin' them that. So you wanna help me? Right, like the cops help anybody." There was a long, tense silence that pulled the air in the room taut between them. Booth pursed his lips, sighed through his nose, and then spoke again.

"I'm trying to help if you'd just let me, Maria," Booth stressed quietly. "I promise I'm not like that. I don't care if you're black, white, Latina, legal, illegal, I don't _care._ I just want to know what you saw that night so I can arrest whoever killed the Hawkins'. That's it, that's all I'm here for. I don't care what you were doing on the beach that night, I don't care what your brother does in his spare time, whatever. I just want you to tell me what you saw. Please."

For a while, nobody said anything. Maria chewed on the inside of her cheek, arms crossed, staring at Booth with so much hate and distrust to make him feel about an inch tall. Liv looked so pale and shaken that he thought she might vomit, and seriously considered getting a trashcan for her. The child advocate sat patiently in her seat, tapping her foot lightly, waiting. Brennan shifted her gaze between all four of them, each in turn, seeming to take them in as if they were an ethnographical study. Booth nearly jumped out of his skin when someone finally opened their mouth and spoke, tiny voice barely audible even in the dead silence of the white room.

"It was like, nine o'clock I guess, maybe ten…"

"Liv!" Maria scowled, but the preteen waif finally stood firm.

"No, Maria, they need to know," she said. "We're not gonna get in trouble, we didn't do anything wrong. I'm telling them what I saw, if you wanna say nothing then fine, say nothing."

"What night was it, Liv?" Booth asked.

"The night…" She swallowed what looked like a dry, uncomfortable swallow, then continued. "The night Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins got killed. Me and Maria were out on the beach, we were looking for Secia. We were at my house and we left her in the living room while we went back into my room. I have a cat and she really likes cats, so she was petting the cat. I guess it went out through the cat door or something, I don't know, but when we walked out into the kitchen to get something to eat she was gone, and the back glass door was open.

"We freaked out, you know, because she was missing and we didn't know how long she'd been gone for. My dad was gone and my mom was… well, anyway, we went out on the beach to look for her. We thought maybe she'd gone down to Mr. Dave and Miss Lori's house because she's used to going there on the weekends, so we went that way. That's when…" Liv stopped her story at that point, seeming to lose her nerve. Surprisingly, Maria picked up from there and continued, her voice hard but reasonable.

"We found her underneath the back porch," Maria said. "Mr. Dave and Miss Lori's porch, you know, the deck. She was under there coverin' her ears and crying, and first I was like, what's wrong, what's wrong? She didn't say anything, she was really upset though. That's when we heard it."

"Heard what?" Booth asked.

"Yelling," Maria said with heavy emphasis. "I don't mean just yelling, I mean _yelling._ Like, not just the way people yell when they're mad, but like, scary yelling. It made the hairs on my arm stand up, it was that bad. It was coming from over the house down, and that's Mr. Bill and Miss Sheryl's house. Me and Liv went to see who it was who was yelling, it didn't sound like them and besides they were super nice, real quiet, didn't never hear anyone yelling over there before."

"Who was yelling?" Booth asked.

"I didn't know who it was at first," Maria admitted. "I don't live in that neighborhood, I mean I'm over there a lot but we don't live there so I don't know everyone on that street. It was a lady though, she was yelling at a guy and he was yelling back. We got all the way as far as around to the edge of their deck, we were down at the bottom, they couldn't see us. We couldn't see them either though; I just wanted to get closer so I could hear what they were saying. It was the guy sayin' something about, _What did you do, look what you did, what the fuck, what the fuck_. Then I figured out the guy was Mr. Bill, I recognized his voice, and it was his house, I knew it was him. The lady was just... I don't know. I don't know if she was even saying words anymore." Maria looked deeply unsettled when she finished speaking, and leaned back into the hard plastic chair, shaking her head gently and running her hand through her unruly hair.

"And then what happened?" Brennan asked, fully engrossed in the story. She had a feeling she knew exactly who the unidentified female voice was. This time Maria shook her head, pursing her lips together. Her eyes were very wet, and she wiped them brusquely without speaking. Liv sniffed loudly.

"What happened?" Booth repeated gently. Liv began speaking, her words choked by tears.

"We heard… this noise, this, _crack,_" she said, slapping one hand down on the table between them. "And then… we felt something… it was… it was warm and I thought… then I… oh God…"

"Blood," Maria said through gritted teeth, looking now as if she might be the one who needed to vomit into a wastebasket. "It was blood. It was dripping down off the deck and all over us. That was it, we ran, grabbed Secia and ran back home."

"Where are the clothes?" Booth asked. "The clothes you were wearing, with the blood on them, where are they?"

"We burnt 'em," Maria said. "We ran out in the water to wash the blood off us, it was… _ay Dios_, it was so bad, and we tried to wash the clothes after we got back but they had these awful stains and we just… late that night, after we were supposed to be in bed, we got up and we went out and burnt 'em in the pit. That's when we went back and saw that lady cleanin' everything up, like, three in the morning. We hid up under Mr. Dave and Miss Lori's deck and watched, watched her bleaching everything… and the bodies…_ no me siento bien_…" No sooner had the words left Maria's mouth than she began to lurch forward, and the child advocate, who had been paying attention, slid a small trashcan underneath her just in time. She wretched into the basket while Liv held her hair back, and when she was finally done, Liv continued the story.

"When we heard about what happened to Mr. Bill and Miss Sheryl, that somebody killed them, we knew that was what it must've been," Liv nearly whispered. "We didn't know then, we just… we just ran, we were scared. I'm sorry."

"You don't have anything to be sorry about," Booth said kindly. "You did what anybody would've done, what happened that night was scary. Anybody would have run home."

"But maybe if we'd told somebody right when it happened…"

"No, it wouldn't have made a difference," Brennan said plainly. "The injuries to Mr. Hawkins' skull were too severe, the internal hemorrhaging was immediate, he died within minutes. He would have suffered complete brain death before the ambulance even arrived." Her words seemed harsh, stark as the room they found themselves in, but Booth knew she meant them as a comfort, and something about them did seem to settle the young girl's guilt.

"Who was that lady, the one you saw cleaning up?" Booth asked, even though he was sure he knew the answer. He needed them to say it, with God and the cameras as their witness. They had to point a clear finger, mince no words. They had to say it.

"Miss Lenore," Liv finally said. "It was Mrs. Abbott, she did it. She killed them."

* * *

**PS:** As a side note, yes, I am aware that in reality Liv and Maria would have been questioned on the incident separately so that the police could corroborate their accounts of the incident. But their dynamic works so much better together than apart, so suspend disbelief and just go with it. :) Also, the group JamisonParker did a really good cover of the song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World", it's on the _Punk Goes 80s_ CD and you should definitely give it a listen!


	17. All These Things About Me

**A/N:** This is it, the last chapter! I know I am absolutely horrible at updating and I won't be surprised if nobody even reads the last chapter, considering it's been two months since I updated... but I do hope that a few of you have stuck around for the ending. :) There will be an afterthought to follow, not an epilogue, just some personal musings and a recapped list of songs and artists. Anyway, enjoy this final chapter, and please let me know what you think!

* * *

_Turn the dial on my words_  
_I can feel them fall short_  
_Turn the dial, chime alarm, chime alarm_  
_Watch these hands move apart_  
_Turn the dial on my words_

_I can see you staying here..._

_- Whirring, The Joy Formidable_

* * *

"Maybe you should wait here," Booth said as he stepped out of the car, not even sure why he said the words when he knew she wouldn't listen, stepping out of the passenger's side of the car and following him down the street. They parked at their 'house' and Booth patted his hip, where his gun was holstered. As he walked his badge, no longer hidden, glinted in the unforgiving Florida sun as it shifted with every step he took towards the Abbott's home.

"Right," Brennan said with a smirk. He should know better by now.

"She's a lot stronger than she looks, and if she was willing to kill over…"

"We don't know for sure what she killed over yet, Booth," Brennan said, always quick to admonish him for jumping to conclusions, however logical they may seem, without absolute evidence. They knew for sure, now, that Lenore Abbott had killed Bill and Sheryl Hawkins; on the drive back from the FBI dispatch office they'd received a phone call from Hodgins, informing them that the toluene solution found on the remains was indeed nail polish. They had an eye witness account of the incident and circumstantial evidence tying Lenore to the case—all they needed now was to find the boat oar that Liv Christiansen had implicated as the murder weapon, and hopefully, with any luck, a confession out of Lenore Abbott.

They approached the door slowly, and Booth's fist faltered slightly as it hovered in the air for a moment. The second he knocked on that door, it was over. Everything they had been up to, their last shred of pseudo-marriage, this so-called "life" they had constructed, would be completely obliterated. They were now, finally, in this moment, returning to absolute normalcy—or at least, whatever could be left of it. They were, at last, no longer Sam and Christine. This was it.

"What's wrong?" Brennan whispered quietly. Booth shook his head and brought his knuckles down on the door. They could hear the hollow sound echo throughout the cavernous house, and before long, the click-click-click of shoes coming down the tiled foyer. _Foy-ay_ was how Lenore had pronounced it, and it drove Booth insane. He didn't know why that thought of all thoughts was crossing his mind at that moment.

"Oh, Sam, Christine!" Lenore greeted, opening the door with a look of mild shock. She was in a pair of velour track pants and a tank top, and looked as if she were just about to go out for a run. "What a surprise, how _lovely_ to see you two again. I was just about to go out for a jog, though… but would you like to have a quick drink anyway?"

"It's over, Lenore," Booth said, pulling out his badge and flashing it to her. Her demeanor changed completely; it was like watching ice crack. Her face hardened, and while her lips hardened into a frozen smile, her eyes flicked back and forth between Booth and Brennan as if she were a trapped animal.

"I… well, I'm sure I don't know what you mean," she said, her voice trying to cling to its former chipper air but losing to an edge of anxiety. "Sam? What is this about?"

"I'm… my name isn't Sam, Lenore. It's Seeley Booth. Special Agent Seeley Booth. I'm with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, this is my partner, Dr. Temperance Brennan. I think you know why we're here."

Instead of responding, Lenore simply stood there, as if unable to move or respond, smile plastered across her face even as her eyes filled with tears.

"No, I'm quite sure I… I just don't… are you sure you wouldn't like a drink?" Lenore clambered, as if grasping for anything, anything at all to save her. Brennan was suddenly overcome by a feeling she could not quite name—she could not call it disgust, or pity, but maybe some mingling of the two. Booth told Lenore to turn around, and finally, after a moment of silence, she did. He placed her wrists in the cuffs, and at that point she finally began to lose composure. At the sound of her weeping, Hank Abbott came out into the living room, in boxer shorts and a Jags t-shirt, staring down the foyer at the spectacle in his doorway with alarm.

"Lenore, what's going on?" he asked. Booth chose to ignore the man's presence.

"Lenore Abbott, you're under arrest for the murder of Bill and Sheryl Hawkins."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Hank shouted, storming across the living room.

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law…"

"Get your hands off my wife!" Hank shouted. Booth held onto Lenore's forearm gently with one hand, somehow sensing her palpable defeat, and unholstered his gun with the other.

"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to stay where you are," Booth said calmly. At the sight of the gun Hank paused, then took a step back, running his hands over his head and shaking it with confusion and anger.

"I don't understand, what's going on! Why are you taking my wife? Lenore, what the hell's going on?"

"You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one—" Booth paused for a moment in his reading of her Miranda rights, thinking about how ironic that was, given the entire situation, "—then one will be provided for you by the state." Lenore had resigned herself to silent tears as she was lead down the street towards the SUV, a spectacle the entire neighborhood was now watching, their faces peeking out between closed curtains. If their whispers were all formed into one collective, Booth thought, the sound would be deafening.

oOoOoOoOo

"Just to be perfectly clear, you are _waiving_ your right to an attorney during questioning, is that correct?" Booth said. He sat across from Lenore in the interrogation room, the one he had been in only hours ago with the two young girls. The sun had collapsed on them as they drove into the city, and while there were no windows in the interrogation room, it still felt to Booth as if he could sense the darkness around them. Lenore nodded.

"From what I understand, I would be wasting their time," she sniffed. Booth shrugged.

"More or less," he agreed. "We know it was you, Lenore. We know you killed Bill and Sheryl. We just want to know why."

There was a long silence between them, and Brennan, seated next to Booth, took the moment to really observe the woman before her. She no longer appeared the stone Barbie she had been before. She was broken, and human. Her eyes were rimmed red from tears and smeared black with mascara, faint dirty trails streaking down her cheeks. She wore a jumpsuit that was far less flattering than anything she surely owned, and her hair was limp around her face. Her shackled wrists rested on the table between them, and Brennan watched as she chipped away at the pink polish on her thumb nail. She looked as if someone had tried to drown her, in fact, and Brennan thought it was somehow both the ugliest and most beautiful she had ever witnessed the woman.

"How did you figure it out?" Lenore finally croaked.

"Witnesses," Booth said. "They saw you kill Bill out on the back deck of his house, and saw you cleaning up later. They told us everything."

"Oh," Lenore said faintly, neither surprised nor outraged. It was a mere acceptance.

"Do you want to tell us your side of the story, Lenore?" Booth asked. "Because from what we've got right now, it makes you look like a pretty heartless bitch." Brennan thought she saw Lenore flinch at the description, but maybe she was giving the woman more credit than she deserved. It was hard for her to know.

"Does it really matter?" Lenore asked.

"It might," Booth said. "It might mean the difference between twenty years or the death penalty. There might be mitigating circumstances, or you might be able to prove that it wasn't premeditated. You know they're going to try to slam you with first-degree murder. If you tell us your side of it, tell us why, maybe you won't get that first-degree charge." In reality, Booth didn't care much what charge the woman got, he just wanted her to confess in plain language that the jury could have no doubts about. But Lenore seemed apathetic, almost catatonic. She just shrugged.

"You wouldn't care," she said, and the soft agony in her voice raised the hair on the back of Brennan's neck for a reason she did not understand. It was like seeing the ghost of the woman she had known for the past two weeks, barely a shadow of a person. "Nobody would care why, they just care that I did it."

"That you did what?" Booth asked. He wanted her to say it. He needed her to say it.

"That I…" she sighed. "That I killed Bill and Sheryl Hawkins. There, I said it. Are you happy now?" She asked without derision, but almost with genuine interest, as if she were simply trying to appease him. It was like watching a scorned child admit to their wrongdoing, as she stared listlessly at the flecks in the tabletop between them. "I killed Bill and Sheryl."

"Did you go to their home with the intent to kill them?" Booth asked.

"No," Lenore said plainly, but with a bit more force to her voice. "No, I didn't."

"Then how did it come to that?" Booth asked emphatically. "It will only help you in the end, if you tell us." There was a long, drawn-out pause where Lenore seemed almost as if she were watching a movie play out on the table, eyes tracing something invisible to Booth and Brennan, back and forth across the surface, still absent-mindedly chipping away at her lacquered nail. She finally parted her lips, ran her tongue over their dry surface, and spoke.

"Everything would have been fine if it weren't for that damn Yankee Lake project," she began, and Booth could hardly believe what he was hearing. Dave had been right—it all came down to the water piping project this whole time. "It was worth millions, my husband Hank had put at least five million of our own nest egg into it. He was investing our future—hell, our present, he took out a second mortgage against our house to finance the deal. He said it would all come back to us, said we would make double what we put into it. I believed him… he'd always been in charge of money, you know. I'm not very good with it. To be honest, all I really know about money is how to spend it." She paused, the corners of her lips almost turning upward, until she seemed to realize where she was and then her face sank again.

"And then?" Booth prompted, and she continued with a sigh.

"And then those damn environmentalists got wind of it and started making a huge scene. They said it would be bad for the environment, kill off the estuaries, mess up the flow of the St. Johns River… you know, save the fishes, all that bullshit. They wouldn't get off it, even when they lost their initial case against the project. You go to court, you lose, you get over it, right? They didn't get it, they just kept harping on about it. But I thought, what can they do? They lost."

"But they didn't just quit, did they?" Booth asked. She shook her head.

"No," she said. "They appealed it, on the grounds that they were barred from an open town hall meeting about it. They said their rights were violated, and that nullified the vote that approved the Yankee Lake project in the first place. They were appealing to overturn the whole project on account of that—that the town hall got so full they weren't able to get inside and yell about the damn fishes and birds.

"Bill and Sheryl were in charge of the whole thing, they were the ones driving the appeal through the courts. I just wanted to talk to them, they didn't understand. If they overturned the project, we were going to lose everything. The money was already spent—the ground was dug up, half the pipes were laid, you can't undo that. You can't get a refund on that. Once the money is gone, it's gone. If they canceled the project, we were going to lose the house, the cars… everything."

"So you went to talk to them on the night they were murdered?" Booth asked, and she nodded.

"I just wanted to talk about it," Lenore said, her voice steely despite the glassy look in her eyes. "I thought maybe if they heard it from me, instead of just thinking it was a big corporation thing, they would be more understanding. But they wouldn't listen. Dave just started yelling about the fish, the damn fish… do you know where I grew up, Agent Booth?"

"No," he said.

"Florahome," Lenore said. "Florahome, Florida. Do you know where Florahome is?" Booth shook his head.

"I don't think I've ever heard of it," he said, not sure where this was going.

"Of course you haven't," she said, finally looking up at him. There was something hateful in her eyes. "Nobody has. Nobody ever will. It's a little piece of shit town with nothing and nobody. I grew up in a tin can on wheels on the edge of Florahome, and I would rather die than go back." She said this without dramatic flair, but with an honest-to-God sincerity that Booth genuinely believed.

"I did everything I ever could to get myself out of that hell hole," she continued. "I applied for every scholarship I could get my hands on, took out more loans than our trailer was even worth, and went to college. I haven't spoken to a single damn person from Florahome since. I met Hank, we got married, and we've spent the rest of our lives building everything we ever wanted. Everything I ever wanted."

"I see," Booth said.

"No, you don't see," she said, this time with true anger in her voice. "Because if you understood, then you'd know why I couldn't let that fucking Yankee Lake project die. It was everything—_everything._ Hank put our whole lives into it, and if we lost it, we'd lose everything. Every single thing we've worked years for. All our savings, our investments, it was all in the project. They were going to take that all away and land me right back where I came from, behind the register at a fucking Florahome Dollar General."

"So you killed Bill and Sheryl because they wouldn't back off the appeal?" Booth asked. Lenore shook her head.

"I never meant to kill her," she said. "I just… I don't know, it got out of hand. Everything got out of hand, and then she… yes, I suppose I killed her. I pushed her, she hit her head on that shelf, and there was so much blood… and then she was dead."

"And Bill?" Brennan asked. Lenore shut her eyes.

"He was going to tell," she said quietly. "Sheryl was an accident, I never meant for it to happen. But Bill… he would have gone to the police, he would have turned me in. I was going to go to jail. It was like… it was like my whole life was just, just slipping out of my hands. I had to do something. I had to stop him."

"So you killed him," Booth said plainly. She swallowed, and nodded.

"Yes," she said. "I did. I had no choice."

"Yes, you did," Booth said, rising from his chair. "You could have let him live, and spared one of their lives. Maybe even your own, too. You ever heard of West Philly? That's where I grew up. Don't tell me about shitty hometowns. You could have saved all of your lives… instead, you ended them. You had a choice; you just made the worst one possible."

With that, Booth left the room, Brennan following close behind him.

"So that's it?" she finally asked, after they had left the building and loaded back into the rented SUV. Booth looked at her with a quizzical expression.

"What do you mean, that's it? She confessed, case closed."

"Well, yes," Brennan said. "I just… I don't know." Now he was truly confused.

"What?" he asked. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said. "Let's go ho—er, let's go back." He pursed his lips together and didn't say anything, but pointed them back in the direction of their temporary home.

oOoOoOoOo

The next morning the foyer (which Booth and Brennan had gotten into an argument over the pronunciation of the night before) was filled with their luggage, stacked haphazardly by a large potted plant. They bagged up the perishable groceries to give to their neighbors, and had replaced the "For Sale" sign in the patchy grass in the front yard. Brennan ran her fingers through her wet hair as she paced around the house, looking for anything they may have forgotten in their late-night packing spree. Booth was eating Cheerios out of a box they had put away to give to the Wilders.

"I'm pretty sure we got everything," he said. Brennan frowned.

"We packed until three in the morning, there has to be something we missed."

"Why do you assume we had to have forgotten something?" he asked. "If we did, I'm sure the realtor who finds it will have it sent back to us. Besides, all we brought were clothes and computers, pretty much."

"I suppose…" she said, finally giving in.

"Besides, we don't want to be late," he said, motioning up towards the clock that was nearly at noon. "Our flight leaves at three, you know how early they want you there to check your luggage in."

"Right," she said. "So we're ready to go?" The question hung in the air much longer than it should have, both of them looking at each other expectantly, as if waiting for an objection. His hair was fluffy and unkempt, hers wet from an early morning shower. His basketball shorts had a paint stain on them, and her yoga pants were well worn from years of couch-surfing. They looked like they were ready to spend a lazy day reading the paper and clipping coupons, not like two working professionals about to hop a plane back to D.C.

"I… yes, I suppose," Brennan said. "But we should take the food over to the Wilders first," she added, and the tone in her voice was incalculable. They had both felt a perturbing sense of restlessness this morning, as if they were making a move they were quite unwilling to make, or pressing hard against the door of an unanswered question. They both felt the immense, ominous sense that they were running out of time, but for what, they had no idea. It was not communicated between them, but somehow it was mutually understood.

Booth took a loaded bag in each arm and they made their way down the street. They could hear shrieks of laughter from the beach behind Dave and Lori's house, and were surprised to see the door swing open just as Brennan was leaning in to ring the doorbell. Lori greeted them with a surprised expression.

"Oh, hi!" she said cheerfully, brushing an auburn curl out of her face. "I was just about to come get you! I was hoping you two hadn't taken off yet. Come in, please," she said, stepping back and letting them into her home, which looked much like Brennan suspected Toys R Us might after an earthquake. Lori made no apologies, and that was one of the things Brennan had grown to love about her.

"These are for you guys," Booth said, setting the bags on the counter. "It's the rest of our food. We figured… well, there's no sense in taking it on a plane, you know?"

"Oh, thanks!" Lori said. "That's sweet, really, I appreciate it. Here, come out back, I know Dave will want to say goodbye…" The look in her eye was almost impish, and Booth and Brennan only had a moment to wonder what she was up to until they were lead out onto the back deck.

As soon as the sliding glass door opened, they were accosted by a group of people yelling _Surprise!_ at an ear-splitting volume. There were streamers wrapped around the railing, and a cake was placed in the middle of the deck table. It seemed that every likable person Booth and Brennan had met while they were in St. Augustine was there: Dave and Lori and their children, Darwin and Harmony; John Christiansen, his wife Elizabeth, and their children Liv and Aiden, and the whole Melendez crew—Ramón, his wife Esperanza, and their children R.J., Maria, and little Secia, who seemed no worse off after being questioned by Booth than she had before.

"What's this?" Booth asked good-naturedly as they were surrounded by laughter and shouting.

"We wanted to throw you guys a little going-away party," Lori explained. "We wanted to thank you."

"Thank us, for what?" Brennan asked.

"For solving the case," Dave said, clapping Booth on the back. "For bringing justice for Bill and Sheryl. I know it was probably just another case to you," he acknowledged, lowering his voice, "but to us… those were our best friends. You gave us everything we could have wanted for their memory." Lori nodded solemnly, and reached out, squeezing Brennan's hand.

"Thank you," she said, still visibly fighting a lump in her throat despite the smile on her face. "We really, really appreciate it. It's the best thing that could have happened… all things considered." She sighed through her nose, lips pursed, and Brennan nodded, giving her hand a squeeze back.

"You're welcome," Brennan said. "No case is 'just another case' to us, they're all important. If they weren't, I don't suppose we could do what we do." This time she felt someone squeeze her hand again, but this time it was her other hand, enclosed in one much larger than hers. He looked down at her with the most peculiar grin, and she could not help but smile back.

"Er, who's ready for cake?" Lori asked loudly, sensing the palpable tension. The crowd gathered around for cake, and before long everyone was chatting and laughing between bites, kids stomping up and down the steps, running in and out of the house, leaving the glass door open without regard to the cold air rushing out.

"I'll be back," Brennan said kindly to Lori, excusing herself down the steps of the deck. Booth watched her go, until he felt someone jab him sharply in the ribs.

"So, what's the deal?" Dave asked. "You two aren't really married?"

"No," Booth said. "We're just… we're just partners, is all."

"Right," Dave scoffed. "Bullshit. I know it when I see it."

"Nah…"

"Hey," Dave said in a serious tone, forcing Booth to look him in the eye. "If you get on that plane today and y'all go back to your whole _partners_ thing back home… I mean, this could be it, you know? This could be your shot. If you don't take it and you just give that up, give _her_ up… dude, I don't care how big you are, I'll kick your ass myself." Dave gave him a sideways grin and pushed his bulky shoulder. "Go on. _Go._"

Booth got up, not knowing where he was going or why, but followed Brennan's path down the steps. He looked out onto the white sugar sand, covering his eyes against the glare of the sun, and saw her standing out in the water, pants rolled up to her knees, arms folded over her chest. The salty wind tangled through her hair, and though he could only see the back of her head, he was sure she was looking out across the water with that thousand-yard squint of hers. It was like she was seeing something beyond what she was seeing—beyond the water, beyond the horizon, beyond the sun.

He tried to follow her quietly, but you can only splash through the ocean so quietly. She turned when she heard him enter the tide, and he was right, he could tell he had just broken that _look_ of hers.

"Hey," she said quietly, barely audible over the cry of the gulls and the crashing waves several yards out.

"Hey," he said. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she said, turning back out towards the gentle curve of the Atlantic. "I just needed to breathe for a minute." He didn't say anything, just stood by her, shoulder to shoulder, looking out at the water. He wondered what she saw, if she saw anything, or anything he could ever see out there.

"It's nice, isn't it?" he said, tilting his head vaguely in the direction of the open sea. "Being on the beach."

"It is," she agreed. "I'm going to miss it. There's just something…"

"Magical," Booth said. She frowned.

"I wouldn't call it magic," she said.

"Of course not," he muttered under his breath. When she looked at him, almost hurt, he grinned and nudged her playfully with his shoulder. "You know what I mean." Her face softened into a smile.

"Yes, I suppose I do," she said. "It's really more, I don't know, magnetic. It's hard to think about going back home after being here. I never grew up by the ocean, we always lived in the Midwest. The closest we got were the Great Lakes, but now, after seeing this…"

"Doesn't really compare, huh?" he said, and somehow he felt like they were engaging in some kind of allegory without being very much aware of it. Or maybe a beach was just a beach.

"Not really," she agreed. "It's hard to go back."

There was a long, pregnant pause between them, where neither of them looked at each other. He knew he had to choose his words carefully—like Dave said, this could be his only shot. He bit his lip, and felt the salty tang of ocean spray on his skin. The tide splashed up against his shins and soaked the bottom fringe of his shorts, soggy mesh clinging to his skin and sending a shiver up his spine. Very suddenly, this was it.

"We don't have to go back," he said, just loudly enough to be heard. She did not frown or look over at him—she knew what he meant as well as he did. She swallowed hard.

"What if…"

"No," he said abruptly. "No _what if_. That's not fair, to either of us. It's not fair to anybody." She nodded slowly, pursing her lips. He reached out and placed his hand on her upper arm, feeling the goose bumps on her skin. Whether they were from the cold water or the conversation, he could not know.

She finally looked up to meet his eyes, and he was almost surprised to see a smile behind them, though her lips were still pressed together with worry.

"Okay," she said, finally, simply, as if that settled everything.

"Okay," he agreed, reaching his arm around her back and allowing her to lean into his chest, snaking her arms around his middle. He rested his chin gently against the top of her head, and felt her heart beat snugly beside his.

The sand slipped out from beneath their feet, pulled by the sun and the moon and all that held the planets apart and the earth together. The tide washed in and out, as surely as a heart beats and two souls come to rest. The sharp salt coated their skin, bit their lips, and everything was alive. And all that life, all that was, all that ever would be, followed the simple command of the ocean—_be still._

And they were.


	18. Afterthoughts: Leaving On a Jet Plane

_All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go_  
_I'm standing here outside your door_  
_I hate to wake you up to say goodbye_  
_But the dawn is breaking, it's early morn_  
_The taxi's waiting, he's blowing his horn_  
_Already I'm so lonesome I could die..._

_- Leaving On a Jet Plane, John Denver (covered by Jewel)_

* * *

It's over! It's finally over! I've been writing this story since May... of _last year._ Yes, it has taken that long to finish. I have written stories almost twice as long and not taken nearly as long to finish them (_The Family in the Tree_ comes to mind). I don't know what the hold up was on this one, I guess I've just been a lot busier with my real life than I ever have been before. Actually, that's not a guess, it's a fact. I have a real, legitimate, time-consuming job, a full course load, and what feels like a dozen (and in reality is about half as many) clubs and other volunteer obligations and internships that I take part in. So in short, not much time for fic-writing, or any other kind of writing for that matter. Or breathing.

Speaking of other kinds of writing, I am hoping to take a break from fic for a while and start working on my own original novel. I've been sketching out scenes and trying (emphasis on trying) to plot out a major story arc for the past few weeks, and I'm really feeling good about where it's going. I may be posting it, or at least parts of it, to my FictionPress account, if anyone is interested in reading something that isn't Bones related. I have the same pen name on FictionPress as I do here.

Anyway, back to this story. What did you end up thinking of the overall thing? I know you have to wrack your brain to even remember the beginning of the story... again, my apologies. I feel like my entire aim with this story really changed as the supporting OCs began to take form. My original intent was to make the fic a sort of expose on the lives of the white-collar elite, and many of the characters I had in mind were painted as snobby, exclusionist conservative xenophobes. I also wanted to take a look at the exploitation of Florida's natural resources, a real and urgent problem that our state is facing.

Of course, as soon as I began writing, the characters took on a life of their own and all of that changed. Lori Wilder, in particular, came to life in a way that I was not expecting, and she sort of became my tour guide for this story. She made me re-evaluate my character list in a much more honest, human way, and made me strive to turn these into real people and less into caricatures of the rich and well-to-do. Of course some people _did_ end up as caricatures of the well-off, but I'd like to think that most of them were more real than that.

I never intended to include a set of characters like the Melendez family, they just sort of... showed up. Because there are people in your life who stay in your life no matter what kinds of twists and turns your personal path takes. Melly and John go all the way back to high school, and even though one is an unemployed Hispanic and the other is a wealthy white professor, they're still the best of friends. Why? I don't know, some people are just like that, they just stay in your life that way. (Also, I would like to note that Pedro Menendez High School is actually a real school, and it is really, really big. If you drive past it, it looks like a state prison because it is a huge doughnut-shaped building with barbed wire fencing all around the property.)

I didn't intend to make this a racial story, either, but race definitely played its part, particularly with Maria in the interrogation. In the past I have been accused of being racist, or using racial stereotypes. I like to think that I make my point by utilizing race in certain stories, but maybe some people don't understand that point. If not, oh well. If you got it, then great. Ditto goes for the portrayal of a child with Down syndrome. If you liked it, awesome. If you hated it... oh well. I don't always write to make you happy, I write to make a point.

And one of the big points here is that money does to you what you _let_ it do to you. Money is means, means to do good or means to harm yourself and others. To quote Spiderman, "With great power comes great responsibility." Dave and Lori came into a large sum of money, and they stayed very down to earth and sensible. John Christiansen had money, and so did his wife - the alcoholic pill-popper, better known as Elizabeth, who I hope you learned to see not as a stereotyped addict or as a terrible mother but also as a real, genuine person, with good and bad, just like all the rest of us.

And then there were the Abbotts. Hank Abbott, who in my sketches I originally planned to be the murderer, ended up not being such a bad guy. Sure, he's a capitalist pig who has no qualms about destroying the environment and squashing the little people in his way so that he can make big bucks... but that isn't necessarily a criminal offense (unless you ask Dave). He's just doing what he knows how, by his moral code, and his moral code doesn't necessarily involve the birds and the fishes. We all know a Hank Abbott, in one way or another.

But Lenore... she was different. My originally sketched red herring ended up actually being a killer, though not as cold-blooded as one might have guessed. There is something real and human about Lenore too, as well as she may have kept it hidden. And there was something primal about her, too. Something wild and savage that grows in you when you live with nothing, something that is hidden but kept well fed when you finally do come upon means and power, something that will grasp onto those things like they are life itself and never, ever let them go. Going back to the kind of life she lived in Florahome (which is also a real place) was not an option for her, not after she had finally escaped to a life she felt she deserved. Sweets was right - her new identity was so deeply rooted in the things she had built up around her, that if she were to lose them... it would simply be too much. So she snapped.

I'm really just rambling now. I have such a love-hate relationship with money. We all want to be rich, or at least well off, comfortable. But nobody wants to be _that_ rich person. So how does anyone become _that_ rich person? Where did _that _rich person come from, how did they get their start, and how do they feel about their own personal wealth? I personally grew up poor, as did most of my friends. I earned a large amount of scholarship money and federal aid, and have also worked my way through school. But college exposed me to a lot of really, really wealthy people. Some of them I am good friends with; others you couldn't get me to touch with a ten-foot pole. Is money really the root of all evil, or is money simply the spark that ignites the evil naturally underlying? I personally believe that poverty is the root of all evil, but poverty is brought upon us by an unequal distribution of wealth, so there you go.

Now I really, _really_ am just rambling. I'm done, I promise. Here is a list of songs used at the beginnings of each chapter and in their titles, just to repeatedly give credit where credit is due. All of these songs are awesome and if you're looking for something new to listen to, give them a shot.

1. Jaded - Aerosmith  
2. Your Ex-Lover is Dead - Stars  
3. In the Sun - Coldplay ft. Michael Stipe  
4. Winter Song - Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson  
5. The Only Exception - Paramore  
6. Your Heart is an Empty Room - Death Cab for Cutie  
7. Broadway - The Goo Goo Dolls  
8. Family Portrait - P!nk  
9. With You - Jessica Simpson  
10. Note to Self - From First to Last  
11. The Policy of Truth - Depeche Mode  
12. Alone - Heart  
13. Can't Be Saved - Senses Fail  
14. Song Beneath the Song - Maria Taylor  
15. Love is a Place - Metric  
16. Everybody Wants to Rule the World - Tears for Fears  
17. Whirring - The Joy Formidable

So that's all for now. Maybe there will be some one-shots in the future, but for now I don't foresee any chaptered fics for a while. I hope you have enjoyed the conclusion of this one, and that maybe it gave you something to think about along the way. If it did, I would love to know. That is my favorite part of writing, is hearing what it makes you think about. In the meantime, think hard, and when you get the chance, be still. It will always end up being good for you.

Peace,

K.E.


End file.
